
Book 'St 



STRANGE NEIGHBORS 




AUSTRALIAN (RATZEL). 



STRANGE NEIGHBORS 



BY 

FREDERICK STARR 

ILLUSTRATED 




BOSTON 
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



F f^^C:» 






Copyright, 1901, 
By Frederick Staer 



2. -^ 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 026035 



PREFACE. 

The author claims no originality for the matter of 
this book for young readers on Strange Peoples. He 
has culled material where he could. His aim has been 
to present a series of sketches which may render the 
maps in the geography more interesting and give school 
children a broader and deeper sympathy with other 
races and peoples. Indebted to many books, he has 
been under constant obligations to Verneau's Les Races 
Humaines dind Ratzel's Vdlkerkimde . Other books which 
have been helpful will be found listed at the close of 
this volume. 

At first the author planned to use only original or 
new illustrations. It has been, however, impossible 
to carry out this plan. Less than one fourth of the 
pictures are really new; it is believed, however, that 
all are authentic and will prove instructive. 

It would have been easy to make the book more 
interesting by the introduction of descriptions, more 
detailed, of the ridiculous or dreadful practices of some 
races. The purpose has, however, not been to hold 
other peoples up to ridicule nor to teach morality by 
contrast; there are, indeed, too many matters for criti- 
cism in our own mode of life to warrant such a treat- 
ment. Nor would it be possible in a book for children 



VI PREFACE. 

to present that full discussion which might be expected 
in a treatise on ethnology for students. The book 
makes no pretence to systematic treatment ; only a few- 
people are taken, here and there, almost at haphazard, 
to illustrate the marvellous richness of the field for 
study which, even now, is presented by the Strange 
Peoples of the globe. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGB 

I. Introduction i 

II. The Peoples of North America: Eskimo . 6 

III. Wild Indians 13 

IV. Mexicans 17 

V. South American Peoples 26 

VI. The Peoples of Europe: Fair Whites . 33 

VII. Dark Whites 38 

VIII. Basques 43 

IX. Finns 47 

X. Lapps 53 

XI. Turks 60 

XII. The Peoples of Asia 65 

XIII. Chinese 69 

XIV. CoREANS 76 

XV. Tibetans 81 

XVI. Japanese 88 

XVII. Ainu 95 

XVIII. Hindus 101 

XIX. ToDAS . .107 

XX. Andamanese: Mincopies 112 

XXI. Arabs 118 

XXII. The Peoples of Africa: Kabyles . . . 123 

vii 



Viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIII. Negroes 128 

XXIV. Negroids 134 

XXV. Pygmies 138 

XXVI. Bushmen and Hottentots . . . .143 

XXVII. Malays 150 

XXVIII. The Peoples of the Philippines . . .156 

XXIX. Melanesians 163 

XXX. Polynesians . . • • . . .172 

XXXI. Conclusion. . . . . '• . .180 

List op Reference Books « .185 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Australian CRatzel) 



Frontispiece 

PAGE 



1. Group of Greenland Eskimo. (Nansen.) 

2. A Greenland Eskimo Fishing. (Nansen.) 

3. Victorio — an Apache Warrior. (Lummis.) . 

4. Mexican Ox-cart. (From photograph.) . 

5. Mexican Water-carrier. (From photograph.) 

6. Otomi Indian Girls, Mexico. (From photograph.) 

7. Peruvian Antiquities. (Ratzel.) 

8. Botocudo Indian with Lip-plug. (Tylor.) 

9. Fish-girl of Scheveningen, Holland. (From photograph.) 

10. Boats made from Shoes, Holland. (From drawing by 

Haitd.) 

11. Italian Child. (Miln.) .... 

12. Basque Cart. (Verneau.) 

13. Finns Singing. (Verneau.) . 

14. A Group of Lapps. (Verneau.) 

15. Laplander en Snow-runners. (Verneau.) 

16. Caravan preparing to start : Asiatic Turks. (Verneau.) 

17. Chinese Mandarin. (Ratzel.) 

18. Chinese Boy choosing Toys. (Doolittle.) 

19. Corean Hat. (Lowell.) .... 

20. Tibetan Lamas blowing on Shells. (Verneau 

21. Mongok choosing a Lama. (Hue.) 

22. Japanese Girl with Baby. (Arnold.) 

23. Boys' Festival : Japan. (Bramhall.) 



) 



9 
II 

14 
21 
22 
24 
27 

31 

35 

36 

39 
46 

51 
54 
57 
62 

71 
11 
78 
84 
86 

89 
93 



IX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



24. Ainu — a Hairy Specimen. (Batchelor.) 

25. Ainu Women, showing Tattooing. (From a photograph.) 

26. Hindu Dancing-girls and Musicians. (Verneau.) 

27. Hindu Snake Charmers. (Brehm.) 

28. Group of Todas. (Verneau.) . 

29. Andaman Islanders. (Tyler.) 

30. Camel and Palanquin. (From a photograph.) 

31. Group of Kabyles : Algeria. (From a photograph.) 

32. Making Couscous in the Desert. (From a photograph.) 

33. Negro Smiths at Work. (Ratzel.) . 

34. Waganda Musicians. (Ratzel.) 

35. Huts of Ashango-land Dwarfs. (Du Chaillu.) 

36. Gora-player: Bushman. (Ratzel.) 

37. Bushman Rock Picture. (Ratzel.) . 

38. Hottentot Kraal. (Ratzel.) . 

39. Malay Family : Java. (Verneau.) . 

40. Buffalo Cart : Java. (Ratzel.) 

41. Krises: Java. (Ratzel.) 

42. Philippine Negrito. (Meyer.) 

43. Houses of Igorrotes. (Meyer.) 

44. Head-hunting Party : Igorrotes. (Meyer.) 

45. Fijian. (Ratzel.) 

46. Pile-dwelling Village : New Guinea. (Ratzel.) 

47. Canoe: New Guinea. (Ratzel.) 

48. Tattooed New Zealander. (Verneau.) , 

49. Helmets and Idol-heads of Feathers : Hawaii. (Ratzel.) 

50. Kingsmill Islander. (Tylor.) 



FAGB 
96 

97 
103 
105 
III 
116 
120 
125 
127 

131 
137 
140 

145 
147 
149 
152 
154 

155 
158 
160 
162 
16s 
167 
168 
173 

175 
179 



STRANGE NEIGHBORS. 

I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

We are to read about some of the Strange 
Peoples of the world. We shall find many curi- 
ous customs. There is an old saying, — 

" Many men of many minds; 
Many birds of many kinds; 
Many fishes in the sea; 
Many men who don't agree." 

Peoples differ in so many ways. There are 
tall Patagonians and short Bushmen. There are 
white peoples, and black, yellow, and brown peo- 
ples. There are peoples whose bodies are so 
covered with hair as almost to be called furry, 
and there are peoples whose faces even are hair- 
less except for eyebrows and eyelashes. There 
are lively peoples and there are sluggish peoples; 
gay peoples and sad ones. Negroes do not think 
and feel like white men, and the Chinaman thinks 
and feels differently from either. All peoples 
have their own customs. When we speak of 
other peoples as Strange Peoples, we must never 



2 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

forget that we are as strange to them as they are 
to us. We think it curious that the Chinese 
dwarf, by bandaging, the feet of their women; 
they think it strange that we do not. To us the 
Chinese face seems much too flat; the Chinese 
think ours are like the face of an eagle and that 
they are harsh and cruel. We think the flat, 
wide nose of the negro is ugly ; negroes think 
it far handsomer than ours. So we will remem- 
ber that all these peoples are " strange ' only 
because they are unlike us: that we ourselves 
are just as strange as they are. They have as 
much right to their ideas and customs as we 
have to ours : often indeed we might find theirs 
better than our own. 

We begin with North America. We then 
pass to South America; then to Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and the Pacific Islands in order. We 
shall find that the different peoples of the world 
are not scattered haphazard ; on the contrary, they 
are quite regularly distributed by types. Thus 
until lately the peoples living in America were all 
Indians, with red-brown skin, straight and coarse 
black hair, and high and wide cheek bones. 
Europe and Northern Africa (which really be- 
longs rather to Europe than Africa) form the 
land of the white peoples. South Africa — 



INTRODUCTORY. 3 

Africa proper — is the home of negroes and 
negroids, with dark brown, almost black, skin, 
narrow heads and faces, and woolly hair. The 
proper population of Asia is yellow peoples, with 
round heads, slant eyes, and straight, long, black 
hair. In Australia are brown peoples with curly 
or bushy hair. In Oceanica are several well- 
marked types — the little brown Malays, the dark, 
almost black, Melanesians with crinkly hair, and 
the tall, well-built, fine-featured, light Polynesians. 
This is, in general, the distribution of the human 
races. But there has been much movement. 
There are now both white and blacks in Amer- 
ica; the English whites have crowded in upon 
the natives of Australia ; in Asia there are white 
peoples, like the Ainu and Todas, who have 
certainly lived there a long time. 

The different peoples are unlike in their cul- 
ture. Some peoples live on wild food, having 
no cultivated plants or domestic animals. They 
hunt animals and catch fish; they search for 
birds' eggs and honey ; they grub up roots and 
gather barks, leaves, fruits, seeds, and nuts for 
food. To such tribes, who usually wander in 
little bands from place to place, the name sav- 
age is given. The word does not mean that 
they are fierce and cruel in disposition ; most 



4 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

savage tribes, to-day living, are neither. The 
Eskimo and Mincopies are savages, but they are 
quite kind and gentle. When peoples settle 
down to cultivate the soil and build homes, or 
when they raise herds of animals with which they 
move from time to time for new pastures, their 
life is easier. To such peoples — so long as they 
do not know how to work iron by smelting, to 
write by means of characters that represent 
sounds, and to make animals assist them in till- 
ing the ground — the name barbarian is applied. 
When any peoples have learned these three 
great helps, they are called civilized. There are 
then three great stages of culture, — savagery, 
barbarism, and civilization. The Eskimo is in 
savagery ; the American Indians are mostly in 
barbarism ; the Chinese are in civilization. 

The way in which the life of peoples is affected 
by the lands in which they live is most interest- 
ing. The Eskimo live in the cold north ; there 
is little wood there for construction; fuels such 
as are used elsewhere are rare ; no fibre-yielding 
plants grow there. Yet the Eskimo has made 
full use of what nature gives him. He builds his 
house, when necessary, of the snow itself, heats 
it with animal fats and oils, clothes himself in 
excellent garments of skins, knows the ways of 



INTRODUCTORY. 5 

all the animals and birds around him for their 
destruction, and has invented an ideal hunter's 
boat and devised a beautiful series of weapons 
and tools. The way in which he has fitted him- 
self to the place in which he lives is wonderful. 
The world over we notice the same thing : man 
everywhere ransacks his home-land to find out 
what is useful and turns it to his needs. 

Often where two different peoples live in the 
same district marriage takes place between them, 
and mixed types arise. Where one people has 
long occupied a country alone the type is very 
well-marked, and all look alike. Thus in the 
Andaman Islands, the little Mincopies look so 
much alike that a person needs to know them 
well to tell them apart. We, ourselves, are a 
great mixture. Even in one family there may be 
tall and short, light and dark, blue-eyed or brown- 
eyed persons. Such differences are only found 
where there has been much mixing between dif- 
ferent peoples. In Mexico, once purely Indian, 
there has been since the coming of the Spaniards 
much mixture, and to-day a large part of the 
population is of a new type — part Indian, part 
Spanish. The people range in color from almost 
white to dark brown according to the amount of 
Spanish or Indian blood each has. 



6 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

II. 

THE PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA : ESKLMO. 

For the larger part, North America is now 
occupied by populations of our own kind. The 
greater part of the people of Canada is of French 
or English descent ; the people of our own coun- 
try are mainly Europeans or of European descent. 
There are of course many negroes, especially in 
the South, who have descended from African 
slaves. There are also some Chinese, Japanese, 
Hindus, Malays, and others. Formerly the 
United States and Canada were occupied by 
Indians, but now there are few left, who mostly 
live upon reser\'ations. South of the United 
States lie Mexico and Central America. They, 
too, were Indian lands when first visited by 
white men. In Northern Mexico a new, mixed 
population live ; Southern Mexico is yet quite 
purely Indian. In Central America we find the 
mixed Spanish-Indian in some districts, and pure 
Indians in others. In the northmost part of the 
continent live the Eskimo. We shall speak 
about the Eskimo, wild Indians, and Mexicans. 

The home-land of the Eskimo is dreary. 
They live in Labrador, Greenland, and the Arc- 
tic countr}^ stretching from Greenland west to 



THE PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA: ESKIMO. 7 

Northern Alaska. Generally, it is a land of snow 
and ice, where it is impossible to raise even the 
most hardy plants. The people are forced to live 
chiefly on animal food. Not only is the weather 
usually cold, but for a large part of the year the 
nights are long and dreary, and the sun is seen 
for but a little time each day. In some districts 
the swarms of mosquitoes in the warmer part of 
the year are a great trouble. There are few trees, 
and those are stunted ; wood is precious, and 
drift wood is carefully gathered to make into tools 
and weapons. But notwithstanding his dreary 
home the Eskimo are rarely ugly and ill tem- 
pered. 

They are little people with yellowish brown 
skin. Some Greenlanders are of fair stature. 
Their faces are broad and round, with coarse 
features. The eyes are small, dark, and often 
oblique, like the Chinese ; the nose is narrow at 
the root, but fat ; the cheeks are round and full ; 
the mouth is big, with good, strong teeth. Es- 
kimo are usually filthy and appear much darker 
than they really are. 

The clothing is generally made of skins with the 
hair left on. Men and women dress much alike. 
Trousers are worn by both : a shirt or jacket 
with a hood attached is much used. That worn 



8 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

by men is often made of bird skins, and the 
feather side is worn next the body. The lower 
part of the legs and the feet are encased in ka- 
miks, skin socks and boots. The little babies are 
carried naked in a great pouch at the back of 
their outer jacket. This pouch makes a fine 
nest for the little creatures, as it is lined with soft 
sealskin or reindeer skin. Formerly — and per- 
haps sometimes now — the Eskimo mothers used 
to wash their babies by licking them with their 
tongues. 

In Greenland the Eskimo houses are usually 
built of stones and earth. They are partly below 
ground, and only the upper part shows outside, 
like a mound of dirt. To enter the house one 
crawls through a long and narrow passage, also 
built of stones and earth, and which is also partly 
below ground. The house is not large, and con- 
sists of one room. It is lined with skins. Wide 
benches around the sides, covered with skins and 
moss, ser\^e as beds. Several families live crowded 
together in one house. One house in East Green- 
land, measuring twenty-seven by fifteen feet, con- 
tained eight families, — thirty-eight persons. The 
houses are so low that a tall man cannot stand 
upright in one. Until lately the only heating 
was by stone lamps. These were flat and hardly 




GROUP OF GREENLAND ESKIMO (NANSEN). 



lO STRANGE PEOPLES. 

deeper than a plate : oil was burned in them. 
They were kept burning day and night, and 
above them were racks of poles on which wet 
clothing was dried. In the middle part of the 
Eskimo land they build the quaint round-topped 
huts made of blocks of snow, of which you have 
often seen pictures. 

The Eskimo eat the flesh of seals, whales, birds, 
hares, bears, dogs, foxes, and deer. In that cold 
country they like fat meat. Sometimes meat 
and fish are eaten raw, but they may be boiled or 
fried. Fresh, raw blubber is much loved. The 
skin of whales, seals, and halibut is favorite food. 
Travellers tell astonishing stories of the quantities 
of candles and oil that Eskimo eat and drink 
when they are supplied to them. The supply of 
plant food is small : stalks of angelica, dande- 
lion, sorrel, berries, and seaweed are used. 

The man's great business is hunting. He has 
studied the habits of the bear, deer, seal, and 
walrus, and has learned just how to capture or 
kill them. He has invented many curious darts, 
harpoons, spears, bolas, etc. The bird spears 
have several points projecting in different direc- 
tions from the shaft, so that if one misses, another 
may strike, or several birds may be impaled at 
once. The bolas consists of several pebbles 



THE PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA: ESKIMO. 



II 



attached to cords, which are knotted togethei 
at the end. These are set to whirling and then 
hurled through the air at birds to entangle them. 
The point of the harpoon separates from the 
shaft when an animal is struck ; it remains in 
the game while the shaft floats on the water ; the 
point is connected by a line to a bladder, which, 




A GREENLAND ESKIMO FISHING (NANSEN). 



floating, shows where the animal goes, and helps 
to tire him out. In hurling harpoons and darts 
the Eskimo uses a spear-throwing stick which 
enables him to send them with more force and 
directness than by his hand alone. 

Much of his hunting is done from his canoe 
or kayak. This is narrow, sharp-pointed at both 



12 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

ends, and light. It consists of a slight frame- 
work over which skins are tightly stretched. 
The opening above is but large enough for him 
to get his legs and body through. When he has 
crept in, he ties a collar of skin, that surrounds 
the opening, about his body, below his arms, to 
prevent the water dashing into the kayak, and 
paddles away. His different weapons are all 
fastened in their proper places on top of the 
canoe, where he can seize them when wanted. 
The Eskimo are wonderful boatmen and drive 
their kayaks over the waves like seabirds. If 
they tip over, they easily right themselves. 

Formerly the Greenland Eskimo made long 
summer trips along the coast. The clumsy, 
great, woman's boat was brought out. The old- 
est man, the women, children, and baggage went 
in it. The younger men went in their kayaks. 
In the big boat the women rowed while the old 
man steered. They often went fifty miles a day. 
At good spots they landed and built a tent of 
thin skins. They loved these summer journeys 
as our boys love their camping trips. 



WILD INDIANS. 1 3 

III. 

WILD INDIANS. 

There are no really wild Indians left in the 
United States. Formerly there were many tribes 
of them> but some have disappeared, and others 
have lost their old-time spirit. To-day our 
Indians live idly on the reservations or work 
their little farms with fair industry. Sometimes 
a tribe, roused by new wrongs inflicted on it by 
the white man, takes the war-path ; sometimes 
some religious idea goes from tribe to tribe creat- 
ing great excitement, like the Ghost Dance. But 
such outbreaks and excitements are less and less 
common. 

Mr. Lummis has written of the Apache warrior 
and described the war led by Geronimo. It was 
a daring thing. There was but a handful of the 
Indians. " Thirty-four men, eight well-grown 
boys, ninety-two women and children " — that 
was all. Only forty-two who could be called 
fighters. On May 17, 1885, the little band 
broke forth from their reservation and headed 
for Mexico. It took the United States a year 
and a half of useless trouble and expense to 
pursue them. Time after time, when it seemed 
certain that the Indians were trapped, they 



14 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



vanished. They never stood for a pitched battle. 
But anywhere, concealed behind rocks or hidden 
in brush, they picked off the soldiers sent to 
capture them. The forces of the United States 
and Mexico were both kept constantly upon the 
move. When a year had passed about sixty 
of the Indians returned home. Twenty war- 
riors, with fourteen 
women, kept up the 
battle, when they 
too went home. 
During the year 
and a half of fight- 
ing more than four 
hundred whites 
and Mexicans were 
killed ; only two 
of the Indian band 
were destroyed. 
During that time 
Arizona and New Mexico and all the northern 
part of Mexico were kept in constant terror. 
These Apaches were truly " wild Indians." 

The Navajo are not wild Indians though they 
are related to the Apaches and were formerly 
bold fighters. They live near the settled Pueblos 
and have learned from them many things. They 




VICTORIO, AN APACHE WARRIOR (LUMMIS). 



WILD INDIANS. 1 5 

are a prosperous tribe, numbering fully ten thou- 
sand. They are well-to-do, having nine thousand 
cattle, one hundred and nineteen thousand horses, 
and one million six hundred thousand sheep and 
goats. They dress well in their own way and 
wear many ornaments. 

A Navajo house is a simple affair. It consists 
of sticks or poles stacked up so as to meet in a 
point above ; they are then covered over with 
bark, weeds, or earth, a hole being left for an en- 
trance and one at the top for smoke escape : an 
old blanket hung over the entrance hole serves 
as a door. Near this hut there is often a little 
shelter of boughs where the family spend most 
of their time on fine days. The Navajo also build 
sweat houses for vapor baths. These are like 
the regular hut, but have no smoke hole, and are 
thickly covered over with earth. Stones are 
heated in a fire outside and carried into the sweat 
house between sticks ; water is dashed over them, 
and in the steam thus made the bather sits. 

The Navajo are good workers in silver and are 
all the time improving in their art. They make 
spherical beads, bracelets, and rings of several 
sorts, breast ornaments, decorations for harness 
and bridle, and many other things out of coins or 
other silver furnished them. The Navajo excel 



l6 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

as weavers of blankets, though they use extremely 
simple looms. The yarn is home-spun from wool 
taken off their own flocks ; they do, however, buy 
some yarn ready-made from the white man. 
Formerly they dyed their yarn with dyes taken 
from various plants or colored earths, but now 
they mostly use white men's dyes. Their blankets 
are firm and closely woven and shed water finely. 
They are woven in bright patterns. All the 
Indians who live near the Navajo like their 
blankets and pay good prices for them. The 
Navajo greatly like turquoise beads, but they do 
not find turquoise on their reservation. For these 
beads and ornaments they trade their fine blankets, 
and silverware, and good ponies with the Pueblo 
Indians who live near the mines of this handsome 
greenstone. 

The Navajo are great singers and have many 
songs ; but it is the men who sing and not the 
women. They have also many interesting stories 
and curious customs, but we cannot stop to tell 
about them. The Apaches and Navajo are but 
two tribes out of the hundreds of American Ind- 
ian tribes. In another book, American Indians^ 
you may read about their manners and customs, 
their songs and music, their stories and worshipc 



MEXICANS. 17 

IV. 

MEXICANS. 

Though Mexico is our next-door neighbor, life 
and customs are greatly different there from our 
own. Three different peoples make up the pop- 
ulation. First, are the pure-blood Spaniards, who 
have been born in the country; second, there 
are the Mestizos, mixed people, partly Indian, 
partly Spanish ; third, are the pure Indians, who 
now form about five-twelfths of the whole popu- 
lation. From the City of Mexico northward the 
land belongs chiefly to the mestizos ; from the 
City of Mexico southward Indians prevail. 

We will say nothing of the Spaniards nor of 
the wealthy mestizos, both of whom are like Euro- 
pean whites generally in their life. But the poorer 
mestizos in the cities and towns and the country 
people generally are interesting. The dress of 
the country gentleman was brilliant. It was of 
broadcloth or soft-dressed leather, of a buff or 
brown color. The little, close-fitting jacket, cut 
square at the waist, was supplied with two lines 
of silver or steel buttons, and embroidered with 
patterns in gilt or silver thread. The trousers 
fitted almost as a glove fits the hands, and there 
was a double row of bright buttons up the sides 



1 8 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

of the legs and a lacing of silver cord. The 
shoes, which were tan or buff, were sharp pointed. 
Unfortunately this handsome costume is not 
common nowadays. All mestizos, rich and poor, 
still use the serape^ which is a long and narrow 
blanket, usually of handsome, bright colors. In 
putting it on, one corner is held with the hand at 
the left shoulder, while the blanket is passed behind 
the back and around the body in front ; the free 
end is then thrown over the left shoulder and 
hangs down behind. It thus holds itself in place 
and needs no tying or pinning. However poor a 
mestizo may be, he wants a fine hat or sombrero, 
Mexican sombreros have high, pointed crowns, 
and wide brims. They are made of palm or 
wool. Those of wool are of various colors — gray, 
brown, black, sometimes red, blue, or green. 
They are of all prices. They are decorated with 
bands of silver or gilt tinsel, and true silver orna- 
ments are made in many forms for fastening to 
them ; a fine sombrero, well made and well deco- 
rated, may weigh several pounds and cost many 
dollars. 

The Mexicans are highly polite in manner. 
This is partly the result of Spanish training, but is 
also partly due to the old Indian fondness for 
ceremony. The movements of the hands and 



MEXICANS. 19 

fingers by which they greet each other are grace- 
ful and pretty. Friends, meeting each other, 
warmly embrace. If a boy is spoken to by a 
gentleman he politely removes his hat and holds 
it while he is being addressed and while he an- 
swers. Should a stranger ask a little Mexican 
his name, with his hat off the boy would reply, 
giving his name and adding, '^Servidor de usted^ 
senor " — *' your servant, sir." 

The houses of poor Mexicans are miserable. 
The walls are usually built of great sun-dried 
adobe bricks ; there is but one room and that is 
small. There are no windows and but one door; 
the roof is flat and the floor is of dirt or stone. 
Generally there is no bed and there may be no 
table, and few if any chairs or stools. There are 
usually some rush mats in the corner, which are 
spread out upon the floor at night for sleeping on. 
There are always a brasero and a metate. The 
brasero is a little kettle-shaped earthenware stove, 
where food is cooked over a wee fire of charcoal. 
The metate is the grinding-stone, on which the 
woman grinds corn-meal. 

The three common foods of the Mexican poor 
are corn-cakes, eggs, and beans — tortillas, huevos, 
and frijoles. The corn after being well soaked 
is ground on the stone; the woman, taking the 



20 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

lump of wet dough, throws it back and forth 
from one hand to the other, turning it as she 
does so around and around. In this way she 
shapes a flat, thin, round cake which she bakes 
upon a round pottery griddle. The eggs are 
usually fried, so are the black beans, a great deal 
of lard being used. Often they use no knives, 
forks, or spoons in eating. The corn-cakes 
themselves will be used in handling the eggs 
and in scooping up the beans. After thus serv- 
ing as a fork and a spoon it will itself be eaten. 

But rich people in Mexico have beautiful 
homes. The outside, on the street, is quite plain. 
The house surrounds a square court or space 
which is called ?Lpatio, Passing through a great 
doorway, one goes from the street into the patio. 
All the rooms of the house open on the patio, 
either directly or under pretty arched galleries or 
corridors. The patio itself may be planted with 
trees and shrubs bearing sweet flowers, and often 
there is a fountain at the centre, with goldfish 
in the basin. 

Cages of birds are hung around the patio, or 
under the corridors, and the little captives delight 
with their brilliant colors or their sweet songs. 
Every one in Mexico keeps birds as pets, and 
you may see, even in the houses of the very poor, 



MEXICANS. 



21 



mocking-birds, doves, parrots, or clarins with 
their clear, whistling note. 

Wherever there are real roads in Mexico, there 
you may see the quaint old-fashioned ox-carts with 
wheels often made from solid blocks of wood cut 




A MEXICAN OX-CART (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 



to shape. Two oxen are generally yoked to 
each, but when heavy loads are to be dragged, 
four, six, or even more are used at once. 

In Central Mexico water is precious, and in 
the cities special men make it a business to sell 
water from house to house. The water-carriers 



22 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



of different towns greatly differ in the form 
and size of the jars they use and in the mode 
of carrying them. In the city of Mexico, where 
they are becoming an uncommon sight, the 




MEXICAN WATER-CARRIER (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 



man carries two water-jars of metal, one in 
front, one behind, hanging by straps from his 
shoulders and cap ; in Guadalajara a number of 
round pottery water-jars are set into a sort of a 
frame mounted on a cart or barrow; in San Luis 



MEXICANS. 23 

Potosi there are four oval jars set into a wheel- 
barrow with an enormous wheel ; in Guanajua- 
to they use great slender jars nearly as tall as 
the man himself, with a ring of wood at the 
bottom to hold them when they are set on the 
ground. 

In the centre of every Mexican city or town of 
any importance is the plaza or public square. 
Sometimes this is surrounded by handsome build- 
ings and laid out with care as a garden. Among 
orange trees laden with sweet blossoms and 
golden fruit, rose bushes, banana trees, there 
wind pleasant walks with benches in the shade, 
where rich or poor may rest. Usually at the 
centre of the plaza there is a band-stand where 
on certain evenings every week fine concerts are 
given. 

The plaza is the pleasure-spot and gathering- 
place of all. To it flock venders of all kinds, 
with cakes, candies, fruits, sugar-cane, peanuts, 
toys, etc. Some of the wares are strange, and 
I am sure you could not guess them. There 
goes a man with a lot of pretty colored balls like 
wee toy balloons; they are red, white, blue, yel- 
low; they are chewing-gum! There is another 
man with a great crumpled sheet of some whit- 
ish brown stuff ; children flock to him with their 



24 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



coppers, and he cuts off pieces which they walk 
away munching ; it is fried pigskin ! 

Mexicans delight in holidays, and they cele- 
brate a great many. The 2d of November, the 




OTOMI INDIAN GIRLS (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 



day of the dead, is a great day. For several 
days beforehand thousands of strange toys have 
been offered for sale. Some are skulls made 
of sugar or clay; there are skeletons of various 
sizes and materials, corpses, funeral processions, 



MEXICANS. 25 

grave monuments. These are all called "deaths/ 
When the day of the dead comes children expect 
to receive these strange presents. When they 
rise in the morning their first cry is, " Papa, 
mamma, give me my death." There is a great 
excitement the day before Easter. All down the 
streets may be seen figures of Judas hung up 
above the heads of the passers. In the big cities 
there will be hundreds of them of all sizes and 
shapes. They are made of cardboard and paper, 
and have fireworks inside. At a certain hour 
they are all set on fire, and burn and explode at 
a great rate, much to the delight of the boys and 
girls. But these are only two of many occasions 
during each year to which little Mexicans look 
forward with delight. 

We have spoken only of the mestizos. The 
Indians are also interesting. There are many 
tribes, all with their own customs, and many with 
their old languages still in use. In the State 
of Oaxaca alone there are fifteen languages still 
spoken. Among the many Mexican Indian 
tribes perhaps the Aztecs, Otomis, Tarascans, 
Zapotecs, and Mayas are the best known. 



26 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

V. 

SOUTH AMERICAN PEOPLES 

South America, like North America, was oc- 
cupied by Indians at the time of the discovery. 
The tribes differed in appearance, language, and 
customs, but all were true American Indians. 
To be sure, some tribes were dark, others light ; 
some were tall, others short; some were true sav- 
ages, while others were almost civilized. 

Probably the most advanced tribes lived along 
the Pacific border. In Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, 
Bolivia, and Chili many relics of ancient art and 
many ruins of old buildings are found. Here and 
there east of the mountains similar evidences of 
culture are found, but they are less known. Best 
known of all are those of Peru. 

The ancient Indians of Peru were industrious 
and hard workers. Their rulers, the Incas, were 
called " the children of the sun." The old Peru- 
vians had important towns and cities. They dili- 
gently cultivated their fields and irrigated them 
by great systems of canals. They wove capital 
cotton cloth, from which they made good clothing. 
Their cloth was often decorated with pretty in- 
woven designs in colored threads. They tamed 
and bred the llama, and trained it for a pack ani- 



SOUTH AMERICAN PEOPLES. 



27 



mal. They could not write, but kept accounts by 
knotted cords called quipus. Differently colored 
cords were used for different things, and knots of 
varying sizes stood for varying numbers. Thus 
an owner of llamas might use a white cord for 
males, a reddish cord for females, and a yellow 




PERUVIAN ANTIQUITIES (RATZEL). 

cord for young. A simple knot might stand for 
one, and larger knots might mean five, ten, or 
twenty. In this way the herder might keep exact 
account of his animals. 

The old Peruvians were great potters and 
thousands of their old water vessels and food 
dishes, which were buried with the dead, have 



28 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

been dug up. These had curious forms and 
were often adorned with colored patterns. Some 
of these jars were shaped like human faces, 
human figures, or animals. Sometimes they 
were " whistling jars," which were so made that 
they whistled when water was poured in or out of 
them. The old Peruvians were skilled in work- 
ing copper, silver, and gold, and made many 
ornaments and figures in these metals. 

They disposed of their dead carefully, and 
many of the dried bodies, or "mummies" have 
been found in the ancient graves. The dead 
were folded, into a sitting position and bound; 
they were then wrapped about with fine cloths. 
After the last wrapping was in place, it was 
painted, a false face was marked on the cloth or 
placed over the proper place, and imitation ear 
ornaments were hung at the sides of the head. 
Many objects were buried with the dead, — 
vessels of food and drink, and the objects 
they had used in life, — with a woman, cotton, 
spindle, and work-basket ; with a man, weapons 
and ornaments. The old Peruvians built fine 
public buildings, and temples of stone and some 
ruins of such buildings still remain. 

After the discovery of America two nations 
chiefly gained possession of South America — 



SOUTH AMERICAN PEOPLES. 29 

Spain and Portugal. Portugal secured what is 
now Brazil ; Spain gained almost all the rest. 
The Spaniard settled chiefly where the native 
tribes had already been living a quiet and settled 
life. In those districts, just as in Mexico, there 
was much mixture between the two peoples, and 
to-day there is a large mestizo population, whose 
mode of life has been influenced by that of Spain. 
In Peru, Brazil, Chili, and the Argentine Republic 
we find lands which are making progress, and in 
whose beautiful cities are fine buildings, handsome 
parks, and artistic statuary. It is a great mistake 
to think of any of the South American countries 
as uncivilized. 

Still, even in countries like Peru and Chili, 
centres of old and interesting settled life, there 
are plenty of pure-blood Indians to-day. These 
still keep up much of their old life and customs. 
And when, instead of looking at the old culture 
centres, we examine the tribes which were truly 
wild at the time of the conquest, we find little 
change. On the eastern slope of the Andes, in 
the valleys of those streams which unite to form 
the Amazon, in the dense forests which border 
that mighty river itself, are many truly savage 
tribes to-day — or, when not savage, in low bar- 
barism. Some of these tribes use the blow-gun 



30 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

in hunting. This is a tube, eight or ten feet 
long, made from a cane or bored out of wood. 
It is carefully straightened and smoothed on the 
inside. The shaft of the little arrow used with 
this is slender and ends in a sharp point ; a tuft 
of cottony material, which just fits the bore of the 
blow-gun, is wrapped about the upper end of the 
arrow and fastened. When the arrow is placed in 
the blow-gun, this is raised to the lips, and a 
sharp puff of air from the mouth sends the little 
weapon on its way. These arrows go a long 
distance and with great force ; as they make no 
noise they are especially good for bird-hunting. 
The arrows not only kill by their sharpness, but 
by poison, which is put on their tips. Several of 
these Indian tribes know how to make deadly 
poisons, chiefly from plants. 

Many of these wild tribes delight in bright 
feathers. They make necklaces, head-dresses, 
arm-rings, bracelets, leg-bands, aprons, and capes 
from them. Not that a single tribe makes all 
of these many ornaments ; some will use the 
feathers in one way, others in another. Among 
the tribes of Brazil, the Botocudo are famous for 
the ornaments they wear in their lips and ears. 
These ornaments are mere disks or plugs of 
wood, which are inserted in holes pierced in the 



SOUTH AMERICAN PEOPLES. 



31 



ears and lower lip. Some Botocudo lip plugs 
are three inches in diameter. Such a lip orna- 
ment holds the lip out almost like a shelf. 

In eastern Ecuador and on the eastern slope 
of the Andes, near the Amazonian headwaters, 
are several tribes who cut 
off the heads of slain 
enemies as trophies. Best 
known of these tribes are 
the Mundurucus and Jiva- 
ros. The Mundurucus, 
after cutting off the heads, 
paint the faces, comb the 
hair, add feather orna- 
ments, and then so dry 
the head that it retains its 
natural size and form. The heads that are kept 
by the Jivaros are even more curious. After 
they have been cut off the bones of the skull 
are removed piecemeal from below. The heads 
are then shrunken by means of astringent fluids, 
smoke, and pressure, until they are no larger 
than the fist. The features retain their form, 
but everything is reduced in size. It is hard 
to believe, when seeing one of these, that it 
could ever have been a full-sized human head. 
Believing that the spirit of the dead man will 




BOTOCUDO INDIAN WITH LIP 
PLUG (TYLOR). 



32 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

curse them and thus harm them, the Jivaros 
sew the Hps of the trophy together with cords. 

In Guiana some of the Indians make beautiful 
baskets of spHt cane. The splints are sometimes 
stained black or brown, and thus pretty pat- 
terns are woven in color. These patterns look 
like simple geometrical designs — diamonds, 
meanders, etc. — but often they are really pic- 
tures of snakes, monkeys, or human beings. 
These tribes use cassava for making bread. The 
roots or tubers, when first dug, are poisonous 
and unfit for food. These are first grated on a 
board set with sharp bits of stone. The shredded 
or grated pulp is then packed into a great tube 
of basketwork closed at the bottom. This is 
hung to a beam and a pole is passed through a 
loop at the lower end. By turning this pole the 
basket tube is twisted, and the cassava pulp is 
squeezed so tightly that the poisonous sap runs 
out, leaving the wholesome flour. 



THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE: FAIR WHITES. 33 

VI. 

THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE : FAIR WHITES. 

Europe is the continent of white peoples. 
While there are white peoples in other continents, 
they are there as invaders. But even among the 
whites of Europe itself there are differences. Most 
of the Northern peoples, like the Swedes, Dutch, 
Russians, Germans, are light peoples, with deli- 
cate skin, light hair, blue eyes, and rather long 
heads. They are mostly tall in stature. The 
Southern peoples are dark — Spaniards, Portu- 
guese, Italians, Greeks, are all brunettes. They 
are shorter, more slender, with dark skin, dark 
eyes, and black hair. In the region between these 
two types of European whites there are peoples of 
medium stature, rather stout, somewhat dark, with 
broad, round heads. Mr. Ripley names these 
three kinds of Europeans — Teutonic, Mediter- 
ranean, and Alpine peoples. We will speak sim- 
ply of light whites and dark whites. All the 
Europeans we have named speak languages that 
are much alike, belonging to a group of languages 
to which the name Aryan is given. There are, 
however, some peoples of Europe who do not 
speak Aryan languages. Such are the Basques, 
Finns, Lapps, and Turks. 



34 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

All the fair whites are so like ourselves that it 
will hardly do to call them Strange Peoples, Yet 
we would find many curious things even in those 
who are most like ourselves, as the Hollanders. 
You know som.ething about little Holland ? It is 
a low, flat country, and much of it was formerly 
under the sea. The industrious Hollanders have 
built great dikes or walls to keep the sea back, 
and, by pumping out the water, reclaimed the 
land. A rich and fertile land it is, intersected by 
a network of little canals. Everywhere you go in 
Holland you see windmills. Because the coun- 
try is so low and flat, there are no rapid streams 
to furnish water-power for mills, so they must use 
the wind. At some places, like Zaandam, hun- 
dreds may be seen at once. With us windmills 
are simply for pumping water, but in Holland they 
do many kinds of work. Some are flouring mills, 
others are sawmills for cutting timber, others run 
oil presses, etc. 

The fishing towns of Holland are interesting. 
Every traveller wants to see Vollendam and 
Scheveningen and the hamlets on the Island of 
Marken. The men and women in these towns 
are kind-hearted, simple people, who are proud of 
their own village and think their own dress finer 
than that of other towns. Each of these fishing 



THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE: FAIR WHITES. 



35 



villages has its characteristic costume. The men 
of the Island of Marken wear close-fitting jackets, 
which end at the waist, and great, baggy, knee- 
breeches. Marken women wear round, white caps, 
fitting the head 
closely, with an 
open-work border, 
and a bright 
waist, with striped 
sleeves, over the 
front of which is 
a square of hand- 
somely embroi- 
dered cloth. Lit- 
tle girls all through 
Holland dress ex- 
actly like women. 
But for her child 
face you would 
take the little girl 
from Schevenin- 
gen to be a grown 

person. She wears a dainty white cap pinned 
on with two great round-headed pins. Her 
ample dress quite reaches the ground ; her white 
apron is neatly tied, and her purple shawl, tightly 
wrapped about her shoulders, is demurely crossed, 




fish-girl of scheveningen, holland 
(from a photograph). 



36 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

and the ends are tucked under her apron strings. 
She wears the common wooden shoes of the 
country. A crowd of boys running in such 
shoes over the hard paved roads makes a great 
clattering. On Sunday the wooden shoes of men 
and boys are usually fresh whitened ; if their 
owners enter a house, they leave the shoes out- 





BOATS MADE FROM SHOES, HOLLAND (HAIT^:). 

side the door. I am sure you cannot guess 
what little Dutch boys do with old wooden 
shoes. They make capital little fishing boats 
out of them, which they sail on the canal. The 
real big fishing boats are really shaped very 
much like shoes too. 

Edam cheese is one of Holland's famous prod- 
ucts. The people are wonderfully careful in mak- 
ing it. They take great care of the cows ; when 



THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE: FAIR WHITES. 37 

the weather is wet or the flies troublesome, they 
put blankets over them to protect them. The 
stables where they keep them are as clean as soap 
and water will make them ; the stalls are made of 
handsomely planed wood, and there is a window 
at each one to let in light and to give the cows a 
chance to look out on the green meadows. The 
cheeses are made of cream and are pressed in 
clean, white, earthenware moulds, into the shape 
and size of cannon balls. They are then colored 
and sent to market. The greatest cheese market 
of Holland is at Alkmaar. Scores of boatfuls 
are there unloaded every market day. The market 
is at the water's edge. The cheeses are colored 
orange or red, and are oiled and wiped till they 
shine. They are stacked in piles like cannon 
balls. 

Among famous Dutch towns is Delft, where 
they make a beautiful white porcelain with blue 
designs, which is a favorite everywhere: then 
there is Schiedam, where they make " Schnapps," 
or gin, which is as famous probably as the Delft 
ware, but not so praiseworthy ; then there is 
Haarlem, famous for its flower gardens, its tulips 
and begonias ; at Leiden there is a noble old 
university and a museum where one may see 
objects made and used by all the Strange Peoples 



38 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

we shall study and many more. Holland has had 
many great artists, and their works are preserved 
in the art galleries at Rotterdam, Leiden, The 
Hague, Haarlem, and Amsterdam. Holland was 
once the great commercial and naval nation of the 
world : that day is past, but her ships still sail all 
seas ; the little kingdom is still a centre of intelli- 
gence, industry, and education, and the thrifty and 
wealthy Dutch are a worthy example of the Fair 
Whites. 

VII. 

DARK WHITES. 

Among the dark whites of Europe the Portu- 
guese, Spanish, Italians, and Greeks are conspicu- 
ous. In speech they are kin to each other, and 
to the fair whites. How different they are other- 
wise 1 They are handsomer in face, more lithe 
and graceful in body, more quickly aroused, more 
changeable in purpose, than the fair whites. Their 
faces, their gestures, their movements, more em- 
phatically betray their emotions. They live more 
in the present than the somewhat sober and som- 
bre northern peoples. 

Just now people are apt to forget how much 
we owe to the dark whites. They have done 
mtich for the world. Greece taught Europe to 



DARK WHITES. 



39 



think, developed an art and architecture which 
impressed the world, formed a literature and 
theatre that have never been surpassed ; Rome 
taught mankind government and law ; Italy has 
produced the greatest paintings; Spain discov- 
ered the New World. These are a few of the 
achievements of the dark whites. Nor are they 
idle now ; in Greece and Italy to-day, in Spain 
and Portugal, art, in- 
vention, literature, 
and science are mak- 
ing rapid progress. 

Every one has seen 
Italians. Those who 
come to us are most- 
ly poor, and badly 
represent their peo- 
ple. They are dark 
skinned, dark brown 
or black eyed, black 
and curly haired, and 
have fine and regular 
features. They are, 
perhaps, the hand- 

^ ^ ITALIAN CHILD (MILN). 

somest of European 

peoples. They love the company of others m 

their work and play. They delight in bright 




40 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

colors, and the women fasten bright kerchiefs 
about their dark hair, fold a brilliant cloth across 
the breast, and hang gaudy earrings in their 
ears. The Italian language is sweet and lively, 
and the people who speak it are impulsive and 
sunny in disposition, though easily angered, and 
quick to resent an injury. 

Perhaps old Rome was the greatest city the 
world has known. The Roman people ruled the 
known nations, and their armies and governors 
were in all lands. Fine roads connected the city 
with every part of the Empire, and fragments of 
these roads still exist though almost two thou- 
sand years have passed. Rome was a centre to 
which flocked the painters, sculptors, poets, and 
orators of the world ; there they produced their 
great works. At Rome were grand temples, 
great public buildings, the mighty Coliseum 
where public games were held. Ruins of these 
famous structures are still visited, and show the 
ancient grandeur of the dark whites of by-gone 
days. 

Not far from Rome are ruins of Pompeii and 
Herculaneum, towns where many of the Romans 
had their country homes. In the year 79, more 
than eighteen hundred years ago, Vesuvius burst 
forth in a terrible eruption and destroyed the two 



DARK WHITES. 4 1 

Cities. Pompeii was buried under a sheet of 
"ashes," while Herculaneum was overflowed by 
streams of lava. For centuries no one knew that 
underneath these layers of " ashes " and lava a 
great part of the two cities lay undestroyed. 
Recently, by digging away the covering, they 
have discovered many curious and interesting 
things. House walls, paintings, tools, weapons, 
ornaments, all remain to tell us how the ancient 
Romans worked and lived. 

But later Rome was also great. It was the 
central city of Christendom, the seat of the Pope's 
power, the location of the Vatican. For this 
reason it was the place where master minds dealt 
with great problems, where great architects de- 
signed wonderful cathedrals, where painters pro- 
duced the famous pictures of the world. Nor is 
Rome small to-day. She is no longer the mis- 
tress of the world ; the temporal power of the 
church has been lessened ; but modern Rome is 
still the capital of a great nation, a centre of 
enlightenment, a hive of industry; a shrine to 
which the lovers of art and beauty make their 
pilgrimage. 

Even the poorest and meanest in Italy love 
music, painting, and statuary. Everywhere in 
public places one sees sculptures in fine marble 



42 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

Such works in our own land would run some 
risk of injury or destruction, but in Italy no one 
thinks of harming them. The Italians all love 
music, and most of them know how to play some 
instrument. 

Italian mosaics and cameos are famous. At 
Florence particularly the making of mosaics is 
important. Mosaics are pictures made by fitting 
together wee bits of stones, enamels, or glasses 
of bright colors. A pair of cuff buttons or a 
brooch may bear a spray of flowers, which looks 
like delicate painting, but is really made by the 
fitting together of these bits of stone. Cameos are 
cut from shell or onyx. Many sea shells are com- 
posed of layers of different colors of shelly matter. 
Onyx is a stone which is layered with different 
colors. A cameo is a piece of carving cut in 
such materials so that the different colored layers 
give different parts of the design. The work is 
beautiful and delicate. Perhaps the finest cameo 
cutting is done at Naples. 

The Italian enjoys games. Several kinds of 
ball games are favorites with him. He delights 
in throwing dice and other games of chance. 
Boys are fond of morra. There are two players : 
at a given signal each extends one hand with a 
certain number of fingers stretched out; at the 



BASQUES. 43 

same moment each calls how many fingers he 
thinks both will have out. If either guesses 
right, he wins. This is a very old game, and was 
played in the time of Rome's imperial grandeur. 
The gayest time of the year for young and 
old is the Carnival. Every one is on the streets. 
They wear masks and are hideously dressed — 
like clowns, deformed and distorted beings, devils, 
animals. They make a great din and play all 
kinds of pranks. They throw flowers and paper 
cut to bits on one another and sprinkle passers-by 
with water. Men, women, and children all take 
part in this wild fun. The more ignorant Italians 
are superstitious. They fear witchcraft and the 
evil eye, and most of the lower class carry some 
lucky stone or other object to protect them against 
such dangers. 

VIII. 

BASQUES. 

On both sides of the Pyrenees Mountains, in 
France and in Spain, there dwells a people which 
does not speak an Aryan language, the Basques. 
Many writers who have studied the Basque lan- 
guage have wondered how it came to exist alone 
in the midst of so many languages that have no 
relation to it. 



44 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

The people who speak this language are called 
French Basques or Spanish Basques according 
to which side of the Pyrenees is their home. 
They differ somewhat. The Spanish Basques 
are usually short, clear-complexioned, with rather 
long and narrow heads and brown or black hair. 
The French Basques are frequently quite tall, 
have much broader heads, and sometimes light 
hair. Neither French nor Spanish Basques are 
pure in blood, being much mixed with their 
neighbors. Still, it is said that a Basque can 
generally be known by his face. The upper, 
forward part of his head is wide and bulging, 
while his face is long, narrow, and ends in a 
pointed chin. 

The Basques are famous for their good health, 
their fine forms, and their quick and graceful 
movements. They are industrious, hard workers. 
In the uplands the men are shepherds, in the 
lowlands farmers and herders, and on the coast 
fishermen and sailors. In the cities they work 
at the docks, loading and unloading vessels. 
Women work at this hard work just the same 
us men. Formerly the men engaged much in 
piracy. Basque women are much employed as 
nurses in Spanish families. 

They are a gay and happy people. Men play 



BASQUES. 45 

tennis, and women play skittles. Formerly they 
had many dances ; one only of these is still kept. 
It is danced by men only, and though the steps 
are difficult, the dance is slow and grave. They 
delight in poetry and are able to compose rap- 
idly. Verneau says : " One may say that in the 
* land of the Basques every mountaineer is born 
a poet, but the poetry is made up on the spur 
of the moment. In the midst of the delights of 
a feast, some one at the table rises. All noise 
ceases. Complete silence is made about him. 
He sings ; the stanzas follow one another with- 
out effort and without fatigue. His song is 
grave and measured ; both the air and words 
are made at the moment." 

The Basques, especially those living in the moun- 
tains, are proud, happy, and independent. They 
are easily angered and quick to fight. They love 
their old life and customs and dislike changes. 
They still use many old-fashioned things such 
as the clumsy ox-cart, with great, solid wooden 
wheels and heavy wooden axle. The old dress has 
disappeared in many places, but is picturesque. 
Men wear rather loose and baggy trousers, a 
close-fitting vest, a sort of blouse or jacket that 
reaches only to the waist, a wide, white collar 
turned down over the neck of the blouse, and 



46 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

a loose necktie with streaming ends. They wear 
a loose cap jauntily on the head. Men and women 
both delight in bright colors. 

Their food is simple, but they are always ready 
to share it with guests. Strangers are welcome 
to the best the family has, which is generally 
corn bread and cider, with bean soup and boiled 




BASQUE CART (VERNEAU). 

cabbage. They celebrate Christmas by killing a 
pig, the flesh of which gives the family a feast for 
a long time. 

They are proud of their strange and difficult 
language, which they call Euskaric. They call 
themselves Euskaldanac^ which means " the 
speakers," just as if other people using a differ- 
ent speech did not know how to speak at all 



FINNS. 47 

The Basques have produced some famous 
men. The great sailor Magellan, who circum- 
navigated the globe and discovered the Philip- 
pines in 1 52 1, was a Basque. So were Ignacio 
de Loyola and Francis Xavier, who founded the 
Society of Jesus or the Jesuits. Within recent 
years many of the Basques have left their old 
home and gone to seek fortunes in new lands. 
In all more than two hundred thousand have 
migrated, some to Havana and Mexico, but many 
more to Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. 



IX. 

FINNS. 

Finland, forming part of the Russian Empire, 
is bordered on the south and west by the Baltic 
Sea (Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia) and stretches 
as a narrow band almost north and south. There 
has been much discussion as to just what and 
who the Finns are. Some writers think them 
true white Europeans related to the long-headed, 
fair whites ; others believe them Mongolians who 
have moved from Asia into Europe, where they 
have changed their color and appearance — partly 
by marrying with fair whites and partly by the 



48 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

influence of climate and other conditions — but 
who retain their old Asiatic language. 

Whichever is right, the Finns are an interest- 
ing people. There are about one million and a 
half of pure blood dwelling in Finland. There 
are two quite unlike types, — the Tavastland and 
Karelian Finns. The Tavastland Finns are 
rather tall and large built, with a large and broad 
head, a long and large face, light skin, light hair, 
and large and light eyes. They are rather quiet, 
a little morose though kindly, and have a great 
love for their old life and customs. The Kare- 
lian Finns are darker, with dark brown or black 
hair and dark eyes. They were quite tall, but 
less strongly built than the Tavastland Finns; 
they have a longer head and smaller head and 
face ; they are more lively, gay, and enterprising. 
It is the Karelians who more nearly resemble the 
Finns of Asia, Ostiaks, and Samoyeds. Both 
kinds of Finns, though differing in appearance, 
speak one language, which is not Aryan, and is 
related to the languages of Northern Asia. The 
Lapps, Turks, and some other peoples of South- 
eastern Europe speak tongues related to the 
Finnish. 

In the cities and towns of Finland the people 
are much like their Swedish, German, and Rus' 



FINNS. 49 

sian neighbors. But in the small towns and vil- 
lages and in the country they retain many old 
and curious customs. There they live in old- 
fashioned houses or even older-fashioned tents. 
The houses, built of logs, had low, broad, two- 
pitched roofs and consisted of a single room ; 
there was one door and some small windows. 
Only recently have they used glass in the win- 
dows. The furniture is simple. Clothing and 
other articles are hung on pegs against the wall 
or over poles which are supported by hooks 
from the roof. Big, ring-shaped loaves of rye 
bread are hung up on these poles also. Out- 
side the house are several small buildings used 
as store-rooms for treasures and the sweat-bath 
house. 

The old tents are now rarely seen. They were 
circular, and their framework was made by setting 
poles in the ground so that their upper ends met ; 
branches were worked in to fill the spaces be- 
tween these and form walls, and moss and turf 
were tightly packed in to fill all openings. A 
doorway was left and a smoke hole. 

The sweat-bath house is found everywhere. It 
is large enough to accommodate a good many 
bathers at once. Two sets of wide benches run 
around the inside of the house, one higher than 



50 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

the other : these are for the bathers to sit or He 
upon. They reach the higher benches or plat- 
forms by means of a short ladder. In one corner 
of this sweat-house is a dome-shaped oven or fire- 
place built of stones. This is heated very hot, 
and then dippers of water are thrown upon the 
hot stones, until the steam fills the whole build- 
ing. The bathers bask in the vapor, rub and 
strike themselves with bunches of birch twigs, 
and then dash cold water over themselves. They 
delight in these vapor baths, and every one — men, 
women, and children — takes them. We would 
not. enjoy it much, for there is much smoke mixed 
with the steam. Similar vapor baths are used in 
Russia, and recently " Russian baths " have come 
much into use among ourselves. 

Like many other northern peoples the Finns 
make many articles from birch bark. Boxes, 
vessels, carrying sacks, and even shoes are made 
from it. The climate of Finland is rather bad; 
winters are long and severe. The people raise 
some plants, but their agriculture is simple and 
old-fashioned. They burn over the space to be 
planted, work the ashes and soil with crude tools, 
and plant the seed. Their crops sometimes fail 
and terrible famines result. At such times they 
have made bread from bark and roots crushed 



FINNS. 



51 



between rude grinding stones. Such bread is 
czWed /amine bread. 

The Finns love song and poetry. It is said 
that every village has one poet, or more, and that 
he prepares a new song whenever aught of im- 
portance occurs. Besides these new songs they 




FINNS SINGING (VERNEAU). 

have many ancient songs, of which they never 
tire. When they sing the songs of the olden 
time, two men seat themselves face to face upon 
a bench, join hands, and rock backward and for- 
ward in time to the song. First one sings a line 
or passage, and then the other repeats the same, 



52 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

and so they continue, rocking back and forth and 
singing the whole night through. Sometimes a 
third man plays upon the kantele, while the 
others sing. This kantele is somewhat like a 
zither; it has a flat sounding-body upon which 
are strung from three to eight strings of different 
lengths. It is usually picked with the fingers 
like a guitar. It is said that the first kantele was 
made of fish-bones, though it is not easy to see 
how that could be. 

Until less than a hundred years ago, although 
these old songs were much loved, no one had 
written them down. They were learned by heart 
from father to son, and thus kept alive through 
the centuries. A man named Lonnrot became 
interested in them and copied many of them 
from the mouths of the singers. In 1825 he 
printed a book of them, and later he gathered 
and published still more. To this book of songs 
he gave the name of the Kalevala. It is one of 
the great poems of the world, and it tells of the 
life and doings and beliefs of the Finns of the 
old, old time. The style of the Kalevala is lively 
and quite unlike most English poetry. In Hia- 
watha, Longfellow copies this style ; so when you 
read Hiawatha again, remember that it is like the 
old Finnish songs. 



LAPPS. 53 

The Finns are very fond of the Kalevala and 
their other ancient songs. They are jealous, too, 
of their old customs, and dislike to see them pass 
away. They have some societies the purpose of 
which is to keep alive a knowledge of the past 
of Finland. But though the Finns love Finland 
and its old life, they are not to-day an indepen- 
dent nation. They were invaded long ago by 
Sweden, and later on by Russia. For a time 
Finland was a half-independent kingdom under 
Russian control, but lately its power has been 
again reduced, and it is part of Russia itself. 

What we have said of the Finns is true of the 
country people. In the cities things are much 
the same as in other European cities. In Hel- 
singfors we should find one of the great uni- 
versities of Europe, and many educated and 
distinguished men Finns by birth and language. 

X. 

LAPPS. 

In the northmost part of the Scandinavian 
Peninsula and Finland live the Lapps. There 
are probably not more than ten or twelve thou- 
sand, all told. They have had much contact 
with the Finns, and speak a language related to 



54 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

Finnish. In many customs they resemble them. 
This is not strange, as the land they live in is 
much the same. 

But while all Finns are tall, the Lapps are 
short. Most of the men fall below five feet. 
Little and thin, they are yet strong and quick 
in their movements. Their skin is dark, their 




A GROUP OF LAPPS (VERNEAU). 

hair black and straight. Their heads are big 
and broad, and they have good foreheads and 
projecting cheek bones. Their eyes often seem 
to slant downward at their outer corners. While 
they are really dark skinned, they are not nearly 
so much so as they appear, for they are usually 
filthy. When their faces are washed, some of the 



LAPPS. 55 

women have quite fair skin and rosy cheeks. 
Life is hard among the Lapps, but they often 
live to be old — sometimes even to one hundred 
years or more. 

Those Lapps who live farthest away from the 
Finns, Russians, and Swedes still wear the old 
style of dress. In winter their garments are 
made of reindeer hide : the hair, which is left on, 
is worn next the body. Both men and women 
wear big mittens of skin. They have caps on 
their heads, and fishermen and herders may be 
distinguished by the style of these. Fishermen's 
caps are pointed, while those of herders are square. 
In going out over the snow in winter, Lapps have 
long, narrow runners of wood fastened to their 
feet, and carry a pole in their hand. These run- 
ners are five feet or more in length, and only a 
few inches wide, and on them — aided by their 
poles — the Lapps glide along finely over the hard 
snow. 

Some Lapps are constantly wandering. Others 
settle down in quite permanent homes. The wan- 
derers build tents similar in shape to those of our 
Sioux Indians and of the Finns. A lot of poles 
are set up in a circle with their upper ends meet- 
ing. This framework is covered with a cloth or 
with turfs. The settled Lapps live in houses, the 



56 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

framework of which consists of posts set upright 
and poles lashed across. Small storehouses for 
food are built near by, and these are set up on 
four posts to keep the contents out of reach of 
dogs and other animals. 

When they greet each other, the Lapps rub 
noses together. This mode of kissing is found 
also among other northern peoples, like the 
Samoyeds in Asia and the Eskimos in America. 
Mothers cradle their babies in a sort of trough 
hollowed out of a piece of wood. This they carry 
on their backs when they journey, and hang on a 
tree or set into a snowbank when they work. 

Of course every one thinks of reindeer when 
Laplanders are mentioned. And it is not strange, 
because reindeer are useful indeed to these little 
people. They furnish three useful things, — milk, 
meat, and skins. The reindeer are kept in herds 
and form almost the only wealth of their owners. 
Some herds number perhaps a thousand reindeer. 
These herds must be constantly watched. Men, 
women, and children all help in the work, and the 
many dogs kept by the Lapps are chiefly helpful 
in guarding the herds. The women do the milk- 
ing, and each of the reindeer cows is milked twice 
a day. They give little milk, hardly more than a 
cupful at a milking, but it is rich and thick and 




LAPLANDER ON SNOW-RUNNERS (VERNEAU). 



58 STRANGE PEOPLE& 

can be thinned with a good deal of water. Some 
of the milk is drunk fresh, and from the rest the 
women make a kind of cheese. When they wish 
to milk a reindeer, they approach the animal care- 
fully, throw a lasso over its head and wind this 
around the snout so as to hold the animal quiet. 
The reindeer are also much used to carry burdens 
and to drag sledges. 

Besides the flesh and milk of the reindeer the 
Laplanders eat its blood, which is boiled down 
into a sort of pudding. The meat which is not 
eaten fresh is dried and stored away. Fish are 
dried and smoked. Birds and their eggs are much 
eaten. Bread, much like the " famine bread " of 
the Finns, is made from roots and barks. Soup 
is made of pine bark mixed with fat and flour or 
meal. 

The Laplanders who live in settled houses de- 
pend upon hunting during the fall and fishing 
during the summer. They hunt reindeer, squir- 
rels, and birds. Wild reindeer they take chiefly 
by pitfalls : they dig a hole, or trench, in the path 
over which the reindeer is likely to pass, and care- 
fully cover it with branches, earth, and grass. 
When the animals have fallen in, they are easily 
killed. Lapps are fond of the eggs of water birds, 
and to secure them they build nests for the birds 



LAPPS. 59 

in trees near the water, and then rob them after 
the eggs have been laid. 

The Laplanders are great believers in spirits. 
To summon these they use drums or tambourines, 
consisting of a ring of wood over which a mem- 
brane is tightly stretched. This has jingling ob- 
jects fastened to it which make a noise when the 
instrument is beaten or rattled. Upon the mem- 
brane are rudely painted, curious figures, usually 
in red. Thus the sun, animals, and human beings 
are pictured, and are believed to help the drum- 
mer. The Lapps greatly fear their god of storms. 
He is believed to drive the storms forth from his 
cave with a club and to bring them back with a 
shovel. They fear him most at the season when 
the young reindeer are born, and then pray to 
him not to let loose the storms, lest the little crea- 
tures perish. Through their sorcerers they secure 
from this god, storm strings with three knots tied 
in them. Each of these knots represents a storm. 
If one knot is untied, a little storm is let loose ; if 
two are untied, a greater one; if three, there is a 
fearful tempest. These strings are used against 
enemies or those who have tried to do them harm. 
The neighbors of the little Lapps think these can 
do them much harm with their wind strings and 
other magic, and they dread and hate them. 



60 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

XL 

TURKS. 

With the Turks we pass from the peoples 
of Europe to those of Asia, for the European 
OsmanH Turks are only the most settled branch 
of a large group of peoples, most of whom lead 
wandering lives and live in Central and North- 
ern Asia. All speak almost the same language. 
Formerly there was a great Turkish Empire, 
which stretched from the borders of China to the 
Caspian Sea. The present peoples of the Turkic 
group live within this area and in European 
Turkey. Among the most important of these 
peoples are the Yakuts, Turkomans, Uzbegs, 
Nogais, Cossacks, and Osmanli, — the latter being 
the Turks of European Turkey. 

We shall speak only of the Yakuts, Turkomans, 
and Osmanli. The Yakuts occupy an area along 
both banks of the Lena River and extending west 
from it. They are wanderers and raise herds 
of cattle and horses. They live chiefly on the 
produce of their herds, eating horse flesh espe- 
cially, and making much cheese. Like many of 
their neighbors they are fond of koumyss^ a drink 
prepared by fermenting mare's milk. Those liv- 
ing farthest north, near the delta of the Lena 



TURKS. 6l 

River, also hunt small animals for food. These 
wandering herders, living in tents, are not quarrel- 
some ; they respect age, and the old men control 
affairs and determine the time for moving camp. 
Women are well treated by their husbands, but 
one man may have several wives. In such cases, 
the wives live each in a separate tent, and these 
tents are placed about the tent of the husband. 
Men pay the father of their wives, for these, with 
cattle and horses. When a man among the 
Yakuts dies, they dress him in his best clothing 
and place in the grave with him his knife, a flint 
and steel, some tinder, and a little food. The 
burial is always under a tree, and two graves are 
dug. In one the man is buried with his head 
turned toward the west. The man's favorite 
horse is brought in his finest harness and loaded 
with presents: a fat mare is also brought. These 
are both killed and buried in the second grave 
that they may accompany their master. 

The Turkomans, who live in Southern Turkes- 
tan and adjoining regions, are probably more like 
the ancient Turks in appearance, than any of the 
other Turkic tribes of the present. They are 
somewhat tall, with a broad, rounded head, broad 
face, prominent cheek bones, little slant eyes, a 
low nose, rather thick lips, and projecting ears. 



62 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



Their skin is yellowish, their hair is coarse and 
black, and they have little beard. They delight 
in bright clothing, and the women wear much 
jewelry. It is said that they wear so many jin- 




>7 ^f'" 1). 



^^^'i.C^i" ^l"''^^^ 



CARAVAN PREPARING TO START: ASIATIC TURKS (VERNEAU). 

gling ornaments, that a party of passing women 
make a noise almost like the tinkling of bells. 
The Turkomans live in large, round, wall tents: 
the light framework of poles is covered with great 
pieces of felt. This felt is beaten by the women 



TURKS. 63 

from sheep's wool and camel's hair. They are 
comfortable within. The floor is often covered 
with fine rugs or skins, and handsome woven 
stuffs are hung upon the wall or thrown over the 
sitting places. These fine articles are partly 
woven by the women and partly stolen from pass- 
ing caravans — for the Turkomans are dreadful 
pillagers. Until very lately they were also slave- 
hunters and stole many Persian women to sell as 
slaves. The Russian government has almost put 
an end to this trade. The Turkomans raise 
horses, sheep, and camels. They eat the flesh of 
these animals and drink their fresh milk. Unlike 
the Yakuts, they do not care for koumyss. When 
an important man among the Turkomans dies, 
they raise a heap of stones over his grave. If he 
was a very pious man, they pay great respect to 
his grave and consider it a holy spot. A man 
who is ill or in trouble may visit this grave to 
pray there ; if he has an animal that suffers from 
some disease, he leads it around the grave to cure 
it. Such ideas about a pious man's grave prevail 
in all Mohammedan countries. All the peoples 
of the Turkic group are Mussulmans, though 
you would never think it from the way in which 
Yakut and Turkoman women go about unveiled. 
The Osmanli are the true Turks of Europe. 



64 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

Probably you would expect to see only Turks in 
Turkey. That would be a great error, for really 
only about one-tenth the population of Turkey is 
made up of Turks. There are many Armenians 
and Bulgarians, besides Greeks and others. The 
Osmanli Turks do not look like Mongolians, but 
their language and real blood relationship are 
with the yellow Asians, rather than with the 
white Europeans. It is not strange, however, 
that they present so mixed a type ; Turks have 
long married with white slaves, and there is 
much Caucasian blood — both European and 
Asian — in their veins. 

Constantinople is one of the most beautiful 
cities of the globe, and is probably the most 
important Mohammedan city. The mosques, or 
places of worship, are everywhere and recognizable 
by their pretty minarets. Friday and not Sunday 
is the day of service. Daily prayers are required, 
and the hours for prayer are called by the muezzim. 
When the call is heard, no matter what he may 
be doing, a good Mohammedan stops his occupa- 
tion, spreads his prayer cloth, faces the sacred 
city of Mecca, and goes through his prayers. 

The Turk is not industrious and lacks energy ; 
he enjoys ease and amusement. Perhaps a part 
of this is due to his being a fatalist; he believes 



THE PEOPLES OF ASIA. 6$ 

that what will happen, must happen ; that he can- 
not in any way change the course of events. So 
why should he hurry and worry ? He is fond of 
trading, but even there is not in haste. In the 
bazaars the seller and buyer haggle a long time 
over the prices. The one never asks the price he 
expects to get, but one much larger; the other 
never expects to pay the price first asked, but one 
much lower. Mohammedans who can afford to 
keep them may marry four wives ; they often own 
many female slaves beside. These wives and slaves 
live in a special part of the house called the harem, 
where no visitors except women enter. When 
Turkish women go upon the street they are closely 
veiled, and none of their face except the eyes can 
be seen. Mohammedanism permits polygamy, but 
it forbids wine-drinking. While not all Turks 
obey this command, they are usually temperate, 
and drunkenness is rare. 

XII. 

THE PEOPLES OF ASIA. 

There has been much question as to where man 
first lived. Some believe that the first men were 
white and lived in Europe and North Africa; 
others think the negroes of Africa are the oldest 



66 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

men ; a few have argued that the American 
Indian was the original race ; most, however, have 
thought that Asia was man's first home. Whether 
this is so or not, Asia to-day contains a swarming 
population composed of many peoples, differing 
much in appearance, dress, life, and customs. 

The Asian peoples belong chiefly to the Mon- 
golic or yellow race. It is a well-marked type. 
Medium stature, broad and round head, flat face, 
with nose rather low, broad and high cheek 
bones, hair coarse and straight and jet black, 
skin yellowish, dark eyes apparently set slantwise 
in the face, are its characters. The yellow race 
includes the Chinese, Japanese, Coreans, the 
peoples of Indo-China, and most of the wander- 
ing tribes of Siberia. There are probably more 
of this race than of any other on the globe ; next 
to them in numbers is the white race ; then the 
negroes; then the island peoples; last and least, 
the American Indians. 

Asia may justly be called the continent of 
yellow peoples. But it would be a mistake to 
think that no other peoples but Mongolic peoples 
live there. In almost every part of the great 
continent are peoples of white or Caucasic types. 
Thus, in the far northeast of Asia we have the 
curious Ghilyaks ; in Japan, the Ainu ; in China, 



THE PEOPLES OF ASIA. ^'f 

various mountain tribes; in Southeastern Asia, 
similar peoples ; in India, the Todas. All these 
tribes are white, bearded, with hairy bodies, 
rather long heads, and straight eyes. These 
tribes are small in numbers, rather quiet and 
timid, with little energy, and quite unlike Euro- 
pean whites. They usually live in mountainous, 
out-of-the-way places, and it almost seems as if 
they are the scattered fragments of an ancient, 
white population, who occupied much of Asia 
before the yellow race was important, and who have 
been crowded back and almost destroyed by it. 

In India, Persia, and other parts of Western 
Asia, are many white peoples who are like true 
European whites in their Aryan languages and 
in their forms and features. In Western Asia 
there are, and long have been, many dark white 
populations who are vigorous and active, with 
features much more European than Mongolian. 
These dark whites speak languages related to 
each other, but not Aryan. To these peoples, 
including the old Hebrews, and the modern Arabs, 
and many other ancient and modern peoples, the 
name Semites is applied. So you see that in 
Asia there are not only the yellow, Mongolian 
peoples, but three different kinds of whites, — the 
ancient feeble race, the Aryans, and the Semites. 



68 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

Nowhere do we find more interesting ruina 
telling of past grandeur than in Asia. We think 
of Rome as old ; of Greece as older ; but in 
Mesopotamia are ruins far older than those of 
Greece and Rome. There are the ruins of Nine- 
veh and Babylon, so often mentioned in the 
Bible. Both are old, but lately explorers have 
found yet older ruins dating back six or seven 
thousand years. And these are not ruins of 
small and unimportant places, but of grand cities, 
whose people were already civilized, with fixed 
laws, curious religions, and many arts and indus- 
tries. Nowhere in the world have ruins of older 
cities been found, and it is believed that the 
people who built them were yellow Mongolians. 

In Asia most of the great religions were born. 
The oldest religious systems of which we know 
were those of Mesopotamia. In India Buddhism 
began. Buddha was a teacher who felt that the 
old religion of India, Brahmanism, was wrong. 
So he taught a new religion. There are more 
believers in Buddhism to-day than in any other 
religion. It is the chief religion of China, Japan, 
Tibet, Southeastern Asia, and Ceylon ; but in 
India itself, where Buddha lived and taught, the 
people are not Buddhists. In China there arose 
a great teacher, Confucius. He taught no reli- 



CHINESE. 69 

gion, but to-day there are Confucian temples all 
through China. Judaism, the worship of Jehovah 
by the Jews, began in Asia. There, too, in Judaea 
also, Christianity was born. Christ dwelt and 
taught there, and there the first Christian churches 
were founded. But just as Buddha's land is not 
Buddhist, so Palestine to-day is not Christian. 
It is a part of the Mohammedan world. Moham- 
medanism, too, is Asiatic, beginning in Arabia 
almost thirteen hundred years ago. Perhaps the 
original home of man, Asia has certainly been 
the first seat of civilization, and the cradle of 
religions. 

XIII. 

CHINESE. 

Perhaps four hundred and twenty million peo- 
ple dwell in the Chinese Empire and are called 
Chinese. They are not, however, all true Chinese. 
When the Chinese (or their ancestors) moved 
eastward into what is now China, four thousand 
or more years ago, they found many different 
tribes living there. Some of these were driven 
forth to seek new homes ; many remained and 
have mixed and mingled with the Chinese. 

So many Chinese now live in our country that 
you all know how they look and dress. The 



70 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

Chinese in America are mostly from the poorest 
and meanest class, and most of them come from 
Canton. Most of those here are laundrymen, but 
in some of our larger cities there are merchants 
and restaurant keepers, and in California hun- 
dreds of them are gardeners. They quickly learn 
our ways of doing, and many are employed in 
cigar-making, shirt-making, and railroad-building. 
They work hard and save their money, as they 
want sometime to go home to their own country. 
Chinamen who die here are buried only for a 
little time : later the bones are gathered and sent 
home to be buried in China. 

The Chinese who come here are short or of 
medium stature. In the interior and north of 
China they are taller. They have yellow skin, 
black straight hair, and black eyes. Their eyes 
appear to slant or be set crookedly, the inner 
corners being lower than the outer; they are 
really almost as straight as our own, and the 
appearance is due to a fold of skin at the inner 
corner. The long queue that hangs down the 
Chinaman's back is not composed entirely of 
hair ; it is pieced out below with cord or strings 
braided in. This style of wearing the hair is 
not truly Chinese. Formerly the Chinese wore 
their hair in a knot on top of the head, but at 



CHINESE. 



n 



the time of the Manchu Conquest, two hundred 
and fifty or so years ago, they were compelled to 
wear the hair in the Manchu fashion. For a 
Chinaman to cut off his queue would be almost 
the same as de- 
claring himself 
unloyal to his 
Manchu rulers. 

Chinamen usu- 
ally have three 
names. The fam- 
ily name, which 
we place last, 
they place first. 
Thus Li Hung 
Change the great 
Chinese viceroy, 
belongs to the 
Li family. Few 
of the Chinese 
laundrymen in 
this country have 
their true names 
on their signs. The Li family is one of the 
largest in China, but it is also generally poor and 
despised. Most of our Chinese laundrymen are 
Lis^ and are related to Li Hung Chang. 




CHINESE MANDARIN (RATZEL). 



72 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

In writing, the Chinese use a brush, which 
they dip into ink. A single character repre- 
sents a word, though many Chinese words are 
written with compound characters, one part of 
which gives the sound, and the other part pic- 
tures the meaning. In Chinese many sounds 
have several different meanings. If the character 
with which the sound is written stood alone, it 
would not be clear which meaning was intended. 
Chinese books are printed on thin paper, which 
is folded back and forth like a screen or fan and 
then stitched at the back ; this makes the pages 
double. The Chinese book begins at what we 
would consider the back and goes through to 
what we would call the front. The print goes 
from the top of the page down, in vertical 
columns, and the first column is the one to the 
right hand. 

To be able to write well is considered of the 
greatest importance in China. The Chinese 
respect learning also, and no man can hold office 
in China unless he is educated and has passed 
his examinations. From the time when a boy 
begins study he must keep it up for many years, 
if he hopes for a government position. Often he 
is a middle-aged or old man before he succeeds 
in passing all the necessary examinations. To 



CHINESE. 73 

be able to write beautifully, to be able to compose 
a poem upon any given subject, and to know the 
writings of Confucius and the other old philoso- 
phers are the things the Chinaman must learn. 
The great examinations at the Capital are 
attended by thousands from every part of the 




CHINESE BOY CHOOSING TOYS (DOOLITTLE). 

Empire. The man who stands first is sure to 
have an important governorship given to him at 
once. 

There are many curious customs regarding 
Chinese children. One takes place when a 
little boy is one year old. A great bamboo sieve. 



74 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

such as farmers use, is placed upon the table. 
Upon it are spread many articles — money-scales, 
shears, a measure, a mirror, a pencil, ink, paper, 
inkstone, books, the counting-board, objects of 
gold or silver, fruits, etc. The baby, all 
dressed in his best clothes, is then set in the 
midst of the objects, on the sieve. His parents 
and friends watch anxiously to see which of the 
articles he will grasp. They believe it will show 
what he will do when he is a man. If he takes 
the money-scales or the gold or silver, he will 
become a rich merchant ; if he takes the book or 
pencil, he will be a great scholar, and so on. 

Chinese money consists chiefly of round brass 
coins with a square hole in the middle. It takes 
from eight to sixteen of them to make one cent 
of ours. They are called " cash " and are often 
strung on strings for convenient carrying. Many 
hundreds of years ago the ancient Chinese used 
clothing and tools for money. When they began 
to make metal coins they made these in the 
shape of shirts, knives, and spades, and called 
them shirt money, knife money, and spade 
money. 

In eating the Chinese do not use knives and 
forks, but a pair of slender sticks called "chop- 
sticks." These are both taken in one hand, and 



CHINESE. 75 

are used to pick up bits of meat or vegetables 
from the soup or to lift boiled rice or dumplings 
to the mouth. For eating soup they use little 
flat-bottomed spoons of chinaware, which will not 
fall over when set down on the table. In mak- 
ing tea the cup or bowl for each person stands 
on the table with tea leaves in it ; it sets into a 
little ring-shaped saucer and has a little cover 
over it like a saucer turned bottom upward. 
The servant lifts the cover and pours boiling 
water upon the leaves and then replaces the 
cover to let the tea steep. The cover may be 
used to stir the tea for cooling it, and when held 
in proper position prevents the tea leaves from 
getting into the mouth of the person who is 
drinking. 

But how many things are left that we cannot 
speak of! The busy work in the fields, the prep- 
aration of tea, the rearing of silkworms and mak- 
ing of silk, the trades, the government, the love 
and respect for parents, the respect for the graves 
of ancestors, the religious ideas, the life and teach- 
ings of Confucius — these things would need 
many books like this. 



76 STRANGE PEOPLES, 

XIV. 

COREANS. 

CoREA is often called the Hermit Nation, 
because it has wanted to keep foreigners away. 
In this respect it is what China, Japan, and 
Tibet have sometimes been ; all of them have 
followed at times policies of exclusion. Still, 
Corea has had a good deal of contact with other 
nations; she has learned many things from China 
and has passed on much that she learned to 
Japan. Sometimes, too, Corea has been subject 
to China, sometimes to Japan. 

The dress of Corea, while somewhat like that 
of China, and that of Japan, is still quite pecul- 
iar. The common people are all dressed in 
bluish white stuffs. Rich people dress in silks 
of the most gorgeous colors — blue, crimson, 
scarlet, orange. The chief garment worn by men 
is a long, loose gown that hangs from the neck 
quite to the ground. This is bound around, 
high above the waist, with a stiff, broad belt. 
No buttons are used in the fastening of gar- 
ments, but strips of colored ribbons. The socks 
and shoes of the Coreans are like those of the 
Chinese, except that the shoe soles are thick-set 
with nail-heads. Nowadays these hob-nailed 



COREANS. 'JJ 

shoes are worn at all times, but formerly they 
were probably used only in winter to prevent 
slipping on ice and snow. About this the Core- 
ans tell a story: long ago there was war between 
China and Corea, and the Chinese sent an army 
of eight hundred thousand soldiers; Corea's army 
numbered but five thousand. It was in the 
midst of winter. The two armies met at a river, 
which was frozen solid, and the battle took place 
upon the ice. The Chinese wore their smooth- 
soled shoes, while the Coreans wore hob-nailed 
ones. When they fought on the ice the Chinese 
slipped helplessly, while the Coreans were able to 
fight well. The result was a great victory for 
the Coreans who, since then, have worn their 
hob-nailed shoes constantly in memory of their 
success. 

But the most curious part of Corean dress is 
the hat. There are many different kinds. There 
are hats for young and hats for old, hats for 
out-doors and hats for the house, hats for peo- 
ple of different occupations. The commonest 
out-door hat is round, square-topped, and with 
the wide, flat, brim halfway up the crown. The 
hats worn at the royal court are like high 
skull-caps, with wide flaps or wings projecting 
at the sides. The straw hats worn by drovers 



78 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



and people in mourning are shaped like the top 
of a parasol and measure two feet and a half 
across. 

Until lately people in Corea carried wooden 
blocks to show who they were. These blocks were 

carried by boys of 
fifteen and all older 
persons. They were 
called " name-tablets," 
and were made of 
pear-wood or ma- 
hogany. They were 
about two inches 
long and a half inch 
wide. There was 
writing upon both 
sides. At the top 
on one side was the 
name of the ward where the boy lived ; below 
it were the words " leisure-fellow," meaning that 
he was not a servant; then came the boy's 
name, and lastly his date of birth. On the 
other side was the date on which the tablet was 
issued, and the seal of the officer who gave it. 
When a boy was older his " name-tablet " was of 
box-wood; still later — after he had passed an 
examination — his tablet was cut from black horn ; 




7/ 

COREAN HAT (LOWELL). 



COREANS. 79 

when finally he took highest honors, it was made 
of ivory. Poor people, of the lowest class, also 
carried tablets, but of a different sort ; upon these 
the bearer was described. 

In Corea there is much cold weather with ice 
and snow. Much clothing is needed for warmth, 
and several garments of one sort may be worn 
one over another. In the houses they have kangs 
for warmth at night. Under the house, or under 
a certain part of it, there is built a sort of oven 
or furnace ; above this is a floor of stones and, per- 
haps, earth upon which oiled paper is smoothly 
spread. A fire is built in the furnace and the 
sleepers stretch themselves upon the heated floor. 
It is not a satisfactory mode of heating, but is 
used not only among the Coreans but also among 
their Tatar neighbors. 

Everywhere in Corea, Japan, China, and Tibet 
the people are Buddhists. But in all these coun- 
tries we find also much worship of demons or bad 
spirits. Nowhere is there more of this than in 
Corea. They believe that there are spirits every 
where, some good, some bad. They are afraid 
of these bad spirits and do many things to ward 
off their mischief. Upon the roof of the king's 
palace are a lot of ugly figures of bronze that 
resemble pigs and monkeys. All are different, 



So STRANGE PEOPLES. 

but all are as terrible as their makers could shape. 
These are intended to frighten bad spirits away. 
No one but the king may have just these guardian 
animals ; other important persons have two pic- 
tures fastened at the door; at the doors of the 
poor are hung a bunch of rice straw, and a bit of old 
rag. The two pictures represent two great gen- 
erals, one a Chinese and the other a Corean, who 
were such valiant fighters against demons that 
their very pictures scare them. As for the things 
on the poor man's door, it is believed that the 
spirits will stop to eat the grains of rice, and that 
they will think the rag the man's clothing and will 
do their harm to it without entering the house. 

Among the Coreans the tiger is much admired 
and much feared. They believe that bad men 
and evil spirits can turn themselves into tigers, and 
they have many strange stories of these tiger-men 
magicians. Thus they say that once a man was 
travelling through a lonely and desolate region. 
Toward evening he was surprised to come upon 
a fine house. Entering and asking shelter he 
found an old man living alone there. He felt 
sure things were wrong and that the old man was 
a tiger-magician. He was right ; it was the king 
of all the tiger-magicians. If he had shown his 
fear he would have been torn to pieces, but he 



TIBETANS. 8 1 

pretended to be brave. When the old man asked 
him who he was and where he was going, he 
boldly declared he was hunting for tiger-magi- 
cians, of whom he meant to kill two hundred, that 
he might carry their skins to the king. When 
the old man — who you remember was king of 
the tiger-magicians — heard this bold talk he was 
terribly scared. Secretly he called his subjects 
together and told them of their danger. They 
advised him to kill two hundred tiger-magicians 
who were in jail and give their skins to the hunter, 
begging him to spare the rest. The traveller gladly 
accepted, and taking the skins sold them for much 
money. This man had a cowardly neighbor who 
heard the story and determined to try the same 
trick. When he reached the tiger-king's palace, 
however, he got scared, the tigers knew his fraud, 
and falling upon him they killed him. 

XV. 

TIBETANS. 

Few countries are naturally so difficult of access 
as Tibet. It is a lofty plateau. To reach it from 
any side frightful mountains must be passed. 
Not only is the country itself difficult to reach, 
but the Tibetans do not like strangers. They do 



82 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

everything in their power to keep white men out 
of the country. Few travellers of our race have 
ever been to the heart of Tibet. Recently the 
American traveller, W. W. Rockhili, has visited 
that country and written interestingly of it, and 
later A. Henry Savage Landor claims to have had 
exciting adventures there. But the journey that 
is best known and has been most talked of was 
made more than fifty years ago by two French 
missionaries named Hue and Gabet. 

Starting from China these gentlemen traversed 
Mongolia and Tatary and penetrated to the sa- 
cred Tibetan city of Lhassa. They returned to 
China over a different route. It was a fearful 
journey. The road led along the side of vast 
cliffs, over raging torrents where the bridges were 
composed of chains hung from bank to bank with 
boards laid crosswise of them, through snowdrifts, 
and over sheets of glacier ice. 

The people of Tibet vary in stature, color, hair, 
and other characters, but all are Mongolic and all 
speak Tibetan. Some of the tribes are nomads 
— either herders or pillagers; others are settled 
and live by agriculture, notwithstanding the cli- 
mate. In Lhassa itself they are tradespeople and 
traders. They are good weavers and make excel- 
lent woollen stuffs. They are skilled goldsmiths, 



TIBETANS. 83 

and their fine wares go to decorate the temples 
and monasteries. They make the finest incense 
in the world. 

The most important thing in Tibet is religion. 
Their religion, which is called Lamaism, is a sort 
of Buddhism peculiar to Tibet. Tibet might be 
called a theocracy^ or a land where a god rules. 
For the ruler of Tibet, called the Dalai-lama, is 
considered no common man, but a real god on 
earth. Many centuries ago, in India, there lived a 
man named Gautama or Sakyi-muni. He was wise 
and good, and the new religion which he taught 
was a great improvement upon the Brahmanism 
of India. On account of his wisdom and good- 
ness, he was called Buddha, but he never claimed 
to be himself a god. Since his death, however, 
many millions of people in many lands have wor- 
shipped him as a god. 

All Buddhists believe that there may be many 
Buddhas — that Gautama was one Buddha, and 
that there were others before him and will be 
others hereafter. In Tibet, however, they think 
that there are always Buddhas on earth, and that 
when one Buddha dies his spirit at once enters 
the body of some little babe, who becomes a 
Buddha in his place. The Dalai-lama is the 
greatest of living Buddhas. There are many 



84 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



others in different parts of Tibet and Tatary, all of 
whom are worshipped as gods. The Dalai-lama 
lives in Lhassa, the sacred city, in a beautiful 
palace, and has many priests to serve him. He 
is the all-powerful being in the land. 

But he does not trouble himself about govern- 
ing his people. He appoints a nomekhan to rule 
for him. The nomekhan has four kalons who are 




TIBETAN LAMAS BLOWING ON SHELLS (VERNEAU). 

appointed to assist him. These four appoint all 
the other oiHcers, most of whom are lamas or 
priests. Really the lamas control everything in 
Tibet. Generally they live together in great 
buildings called lamaseries. These are to be seen 
everywhere in the land, and are often perched upon 
the summits of loft}^ mountains, from which they 
overlook the country for miles around. Some 



TIBETANS. 85 

lamaseries contain but a few priests, others con- 
tain many thousands. The lamas are at once 
known from the people by their dress. 

The lamas receive support from the common 
people, and when it is not brought to them, they 
go to gather it. Hue met two lamas on horseback 
gathering gifts of butter from the shepherds. 
" Their course is this : they present themselves 
at the entrance of each tent and thrice sound a 
marine conch.^ Thereupon some member of the 
family brings out a small roll of butter, which, 
without saying a word, he deposits in a bag sus- 
pended from the saddle of each lama's horse. 
The lamas never once alight, but content them- 
selves with riding up to each tent, and announc- 
ing their presence to the inmates by the sound of 
the shell." 

When a Dalai-lama dies, search is made for 
the new one. Prayers are said in all the lama- 
series, processions are made, incense is burned. 
Even the common people everywhere pray. 
There are certain signs by which a baby 
shows that the spirit of a lama has entered 
him. All parents who think their baby the 
one send word to Lhassa and bring their babies 
there. All are carefully examined, and the three 

* A shell used as a trumpet. 



S6 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



who best show the signs of being Buddha are 
taken. After fasting for six days, the priests 
who decide the matter take a golden urn contain- 
ing three little fish of gold, upon each of which 
is engraved the name of one of the three babies. 




MONGOLS CHOOSING A LAMA (HUC). 



The urn is shaken and one of the fish is drawn. 
The baby whose name is engraved on it becomes 
the Dalai-lama. To the unlucky babies before 
they are sent home a present of five hundred 
ounces of silver is given. 

Every day near sunset in Lhassa, all the men, 



TIBETANS. 87 

women, and children stop whatever they may be 
doing and gather in the public squares of the 
city. There, grouped by sex and age, they kneel 
and chant their evening prayer. This prayer 
would seem to us curious, for it asks for nothing. 
The commonest prayer is — om mani padme hum^ 
which means " the jewel in the lotus." By the 
jewel they mean divine power. The lotus is a 
water-lily. The prayer is about the same thing 
as calling on the name of God. This prayer they 
repeat over and over again. 

To write this prayer where it will be seen is a 
good act. One may see it everywhere. It is 
printed on the flags that fly above the buildings. 
Pious rich men pay lamas to go through the 
country and chisel these sacred words on rocks 
and cliffs. 

Tibet is the land of prayer wheels. Prayer 
wheels contain the prayer written many times : 
every time the wheel is turned, so many prayers 
are supposed to have been said. Prayer wheels 
are of all sizes. The commonest stand near la- 
maseries, and are set to turning with the hand. 
Some lazy lamas, however, find it too much work 
to turn the wheels themselves and so arrange 
them that they are turned by wind or water. 

On the twenty-fifth of each month pious lamas 



88 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

" send horses to weary travellers." On the roads 
there are many hardships, and travellers often 
become weary and perish. To help them the 
lamas send them horses, and the way they do it 
is this. Going to some lofty summit where the 
wind blows heavily, they throw strips of paper 
bearing pictures of horses into the air, and the 
wind carries them away. The lamas believe that 
by this sacrifice of paper horses they supply real 
ones to the needy travellers. 

XVI. 

JAPANESE. 

It is a great mistake to think of the Chinese 
and Japanese as much alike ; they are really vastly 
different. The Japanese is smaller, more deli- 
cately built, quicker, and more lively than the 
Chinese ; he delights in novelties and borrows 
them from everywhere and from everybody. The 
Chinese language consists chiefly of words of one 
syllable ; the Japanese have many long words of 
many syllables. While unlike in body, disposi- 
tion, and language, the Chinese and Japanese are 
alike in many customs, arts, and ideas. For long 
centuries the Japanese borrowed much from China, 
or from Corea, which had learned from China. 



JAPANESE. 



89 



The Japanese owe their writing, the cultivation 
of tea, silk raising and weaving, lacquer work, 
porcelain, metal work- 
ing, and many religious 
ideas to China. But 
lately, in their hurry to 
borrow all sorts of 
things from the Euro- 
pean and American 
whites, they have be- 
come ashamed of many 
of their Chinese ideas 
and customs. 

On the seventh day 
of a Japanese baby's 
life, the little head is 
shaved clean except for 
a tuft on the nape of the 
neck. From that time 
on, the head is shaved 
until the boy goes to 
school, but tufts are left 
here and there, accord- 
ing to the fancy of the 
mother. After a boy begins school, his hair is 
left to grow. Japanese children have many sports 
and games, but they are quiet and gentle in them 




JAPANESE GIRL WITH BABY 
(ARNOLD). 



90 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

all. The older children carry their baby brothers 
and sisters strapped firmly on their backs. There 
are many interesting things for Japanese children 
to see on the streets. There is the sand painter ; 
he sweeps a space clean and then opens several 
bags of different colored sand; he sprinkles hand- 
fuls of it here and there on the ground until he 
has made a pretty picture. There is the man 
who moulds and blows rice paste into all sorts 
of queer shapes, while the little buyers look 
on with delight; his sweet stuff is shaped into 
rabbits, foxes, monkeys, flowers, jinrikishas, fans, 
umbrellas, etc. There is the man who sells 
sugared peas, candied beans, and other sweets ; 
he beats a drum and sings a song as he walks, so 
as to attract a crowd of children, and when he 
stops he tells a story, or does some trick, to amuse 
them. Then there is the little old woman of the 
batter cakes ; she carries a little earthenware 
stove with a fire of charcoal in it ; this she hangs 
at one end of a pole balanced upon her shoulder, 
and at the other end hang a griddle, ladles, cake 
turners, a jar of batter, and a sauce of salt and 
beans to eat with the cakes ; the children pay five 
cents, and the old lady sets everything down, 
whereupon the children have great fun making 
their own cakes and eating them on the street. 



JAPANESE. 91 

Japanese children are ever gay and happy, but 
there are two days in the year of especial joy. 
The third day of the third month is the Dolls 
Festival, This is the day for the little girls. At 
that time dolls and all sorts of toy tools, imple- 
ments, vessels, and dishes are for sale. The 
Japanese are fond of dolls, and in some families 
they have dolls that have been kept more than 
two hundred years. In some families they will 
have dozens or scores of dolls. Among these 
there is always one that represents the Emperor, 
another the Empress, and others the courtiers. 
At the time of the festival all these dolls are 
carefully arranged on a stepped platform. The 
Emperor and Empress are given the seats of 
honor, and the rest are grouped around them. 
With these are arranged all the toy objects. 
The fifth day of the fifth month is the Boys' 
Festival. Then they are selling bows and arrows 
and other toy weapons everywhere. Everyw^here 
they hang out great paper fishes, shaped like 
carp, and brightly painted. These are hung to 
tall bamboo poles of which there is one set in 
front of every house where they have a boy in 
the family. One fish is hung for each boy, and 
it is a gay sight to see the hundreds of bright 
fish waving and tossing in the wind. The rea- 



92 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



son why the carp is represented is because it 
swims up the river against the current; so it is 
hoped " the sturdy boy, overcoming all obstacles. 




boys' festival: japan (bramhall). 



will make his way in the world and rise to fame 
and fortune." 

Japanese houses consist of a light framework 
supporting a heavy thatched or tiled roof. The 



JAPANESE. 93 

Sides of the house are wooden slides, which are 
usually removed in the daytime, leaving the 
sides open. In cold weather, slides consisting of 
frames covered with paper can be fitted in to 
form walls. The house is divided into rooms by 
sliding screens of paper, which can be easily 
removed so as to join two, three, or more rooms 
into one. There are no tables or chairs. The 
floors are covered with thick mats. At night 
quilts are brought in and laid down for beds ; in 
the morning these are rolled up and stored away. 

Japanese gardens are curious and beautiful. 
They may be small, and frequently they contain 
no flowers. Sometimes a pretty landscape is built 
of rocks and water: there are little mountains 
and hills, valleys, streams, waterfalls, lakes. 
Wonderful in such gardens are the dwarfed trees. 
They may be pine trees, fifty or one hundred 
years old, flourishing and perfect in form, but not 
more than a foot in height. 

While Japanese gardens frequently contain 
none, the people are wonderfully fond of flowers. 
Among the favorites are the chrysanthemum, 
plum blossoms, and cherry blossoms. When 
these are in bloom every one goes to the places 
where they grow and delight in their beauty. 
These flower picnics are looked forward to for 



94 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



months. The cherry and plum trees are cov- 
ered : " You see no leaves — only one great filmy 
mass of petals. Japanese chrysanthemums are 
wonderful ; there are many strange or beautiful 
varieties. At one place in Tokyo, these flowers 
are wrought into all sorts of curious compositions 
— men and gods, boats, bridges, castles, etc." 

The Japanese love to hear stories. There are 
fairy stories for the little people and tales of 
adventure and history for the larger ones. There 
are men whose business is story telling. Some 
of these wander about until they find a good spot, 
when they will stop and begin the tale ; a crowd 
soon gathers to listen. Others are hired to tell 
their stories in a story-telling house, where people 
gather every evening, just as at the theatre. 

We have said so much about amusements and 
festivals that you may think the Japanese are 
always playing. No indeed, they are hard work- 
ers. They cultivate their fields industriously; 
they have many trades ; they are great traders ; 
they are fine artists. Their silk weaving, their 
metal work, their lacquer work, and their porcelains 
are famous. 

In these last years Japan has made great 
changes. She has borrowed so much from the 
whites that they have little left to teach her. To- 



AINU. 95 

day she has all our great inventions — telegraphs 
and telephones, electric lights and railroads ; and 
in borrowing so much that is new she has lost 
and is losing much — very much — of the happy 
old life. 

XVII. 

AINU. 

Before the Japanese entered what is now Japan 
that country was occupied by the Ainu, among 
the most interesting people of the world. There 
are not many of them. In Yezo, the northern 
island of Japan, there are about seventeen thousand, 
and in the island of Saghalien, formerly Japanese, 
but now Russian, there are others. They are not 
like the Japanese, but are considered whites, not 
Mongolians. The men measure about five feet 
four inches ; the women not more than five feet 
two inches. Their color is flesh, with a tinge of 
red or yellow; their eyes are large and do not 
appear to slant like those of the yellow peoples ; 
their hair is abundant and tangled and they have 
much beard. Their body is very hairy. They 
are filthy and rarely wash themselves. 

The women tattoo, beginning in girlhood. 
The patterns are cut in the flesh with a razor 
and soot is rubbed into the lines ; to render the 



gd STRANGE PEOPLES. 

color permanent, water in which ash-tree bark has 
been steeped is rubbed over the part tattooed. The 
tattooing first done is at the centre of the upper 
lip ; later the lower lip. The marks are added to 
from time to time until they cover the upper lip 




AINU: A HAIRY SPECIMEN (BATCHELOR). 

and reach from ear to ear. Such women appear 
to have a great moustache. After marriage a 
woman's forehead may be tattooed, also patterns 
may be made up the backs of the hands and on the 
arms, and rings may be tattooed around her fingers. 



AINU. 



97 



Ainu clothing is generally made of elm bark, 
and that worn by men and women is much 
alike. The bark is stripped from the tree in 
spring, when it is full of sap. It is soaked in 
water to separate the inner and outer bark. 
Fibres are secured from the inner bark, which 




AINU WOMEN: SHOWING TATTOOING (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 

can be woven like thread into cloth. The men's 
garments of this fibre cloth are adorned with pat- 
terns embroidered with colored threads ; those of 
women are generally plain. 

The Ainu house is rectangular, with a rather 
frail support and a substantial thatched roof. 
The roof is built first ; then the chief posts of the 
walls are set and the roof is lifted up and put on 



9$ STRANGE PEOPLES. 

them. Ainu houses grow as the family grows. 
A young married couple build a small house ; as 
they have children a new and larger house is built 
behind the old one, which remains as a sort of 
hall; when the family is still larger and richer, 
the hall is torn down and a larger house is built 
behind the second one, which now becomes a hall 
or porch to it. There are two windows and one 
door in these houses. The windows are on the 
south and east sides, while the door is at the west 
end. The east end of the house and its window 
are sacred ; people must not throw things through 
this window nor spit out of it. Sometimes the 
men worship the rising sun as they see it through 
this east window. 

The Ainu are hunters and have ingenious ways 
of capturing or killing animals. In hunting deer 
they use a little squeaking whistle, the sound of 
which attracts the animals. They set bows, with 
arrows on the stretched cord, near trails over 
which deer and bears pass ; in passing, the animal 
strikes a cord which lets loose a trigger, and the 
arrow flies. They also set a trap consisting of a 
stout bow, which, when sprung, shuts two boards 
tightly together ; the foot of the animal is caught 
between these and held fast. Formerly the Ainu 
used poisoned arrows in hunting. These had a 



AINU. 99 

broad, hollowed point, in which a little of the 
poisonous paste was stuck. The poison was 
made from the root of aconite mixed with 
tobacco, peppers, and poisoned spiders. These, 
and other substances, were carefully mixed into a 
gummy paste. At present the Japanese govern- 
ment forbids the Yezo Ainu to use these poi- 
soned arrows. 

The bear hunt is looked forward to with 
anxiety. It is in the spring while snow is yet on 
the ground. Before starting the hunters pray to 
their gods for help and direction. Dogs accom- 
pany them. When a den is found, there is great 
excitement. They try to draw the animal out 
by teasing him with long poles. If he will not 
come out, one of the men draws his knife, enters 
the den, and faces the bear. The animal pushes 
him aside, when the hunter pricks him from 
behind with his knife. The angry animal then 
rushes forth, growling and snarling. The hunters 
and dogs waiting outside soon despatch him, 
though frequently some one is hurt or killed. 
The hunters then sit down near the dead bear 
and say all kinds of pretty things to him, pretend- 
ing that they are sorry to have killed him, and 
asking his forgiveness. They then skin him, cut 
up the meat, carry it home, and have a feast. 



TOO STRANGE PEOPLES. 

At Ainu feasts the men always become dread« 
fully drunk from drinking rice wine. When 
he drinks, the Ainu uses a little stick to lift his 
moustache and keep it from the wine. These 
moustache lifters are made for the purpose and 
are frequently neatly carved. 

Sometimes Ainu hunters secure a little bear 
cub, which they carry carefully home. It is fed 
with the best of food, and treated as a great pet. 
When it is so big as to be rough and trouble- 
some, they put it in a cage. When it is quite 
grown, a bear feast is planned. Many guests are 
invited. The men eat millet-cakes and drink 
rice wine. After feasting for some time two men 
noose the bear with ropes and drag him around ; 
the whole company then worry and tease the 
poor creature, finally choking him, after which 
they eat him. 

The Ainu have many gods. In praying to 
them they use inao. These are little sticks 
which are so whittled with knives that curls of 
shavings hang from them. There are several 
ways of cutting these, and they are believed to 
please the gods. They are stuck up in the 
ground and left where prayers are made. Ainu 
men spend much time whittling these inao. 



HINDUS. lOI 

XVIII. 

HINDUS. 

The Hindus are but one of the many peoples 
living in India. They are considered a Caucasic, 
white people, though their skin is a dark brown 
and they have black hair and eyes. Their lan- 
guage belongs to the Aryan family, to which most 
European languages belong. 

The dress of the Hindus is too well known to 
need description. Hindu women are fond of jew- 
elry, and wear rings, arm rings, ankle rings, ear- 
rings, and nose rings of many kinds and made of 
gold, silver, or brass. The Hindus bear marks 
stamped upon themselves. Thus a round spot in 
the middle of the forehead, horizontal lines across 
the forehead, or perpendicular lines from the 
root of the nose to the top of the forehead, show 
to which of the great religious sects the man be- 
longs. These marks are made fresh every morn- 
ing. 

The Hindus are divided into four castes^ or 
classes. These are named Brahmans, Kshatriyas, 
Vaisyas, and Sudras. There is a yet lower popu- 
lation called Pariahs. The Brahmans are the 
highest ; they are priests or religious men ; every- 
body must yield to them. The Kshatriyas come 



I02 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

second, and are soldiers or warriors. The Valsyas 
are the traders, or merchant class. The Sudras 
are the lowest, and are the people who have trades, 
or are laborers. The Hindus say that these dif- 
ferent classes of men came from the body of 
Brahma, their great god; that the Brahmans 
came from his mouth ; the Kshatriyas from his 
arm ; the Vaisyas from his thigh ; and the Sudras 
from his feet. As for the poor Pariahs, they do 
not seem to have come from Brahma, and no one 
has anything to do with them. Each of these 
castes was so much hisfher than the next one that 
they might not even be touched by them without 
being defiled and needing to be purified. People 
of different castes might not drink from the same 
vessel or eat from the same dish. One writer 
says : " I saw a high-caste Hindu dash an earthen 
jar of milk upon the ground and break it to atoms, 
merely because the shadow of a Pariah had fallen 
upon it as he passed." Under English govern- 
ment many of these notions in India are passing 
away. The Pariah's lot, however, is perhaps as 
hard as ever. 

Many trades are practised in India, some of 
them most skilfully. Whatever trade a man fol- 
lows will be that of his son after him, as it was 
that of his father before him. Hindus are fine 



HINDUS. 103 

weavers, and some of their muslins are delicate 
and costly. They are glass-makers, potters, car- 
penters, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, brass founders, 
shell workers, shoemakers, barbers. These trades 
are carried on in the open streets ; the men carry 




HINDU DANCING GIRLS AND MUSICIANS (VERNEAU). 

tools with them, and when they secure an order 
they set up their outfit and fall to work. Among 
pretty things sold in India are figures in clay rep- 
resenting all sorts of tradesmen at work. 

Hindus tame and train elephants as beasts of 
burden. The native princes, in particular, use 
them. A palanquin in which the prince sits is 
mounted on the elephant's back. These royal 
elephants are gorgeously decked out, and the pal- 
anquin is brilliant with metals and precious stones. 



104 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

Elephants are also employed in caravans and in 
the exciting tiger hunts. 

The Hindus love amusements. They are fond 
of music and have many curious instruments. 
Dancing girls dance for the amusement of guests 
at feasts given in the homes of the wealthy. They 
usually take their own musicians with them ; one 
of these plays upon a little drum, the other on a 
kind of guitar. Street exhibitions are frequent. 
Parties of acrobats go about performing feats. 
Every one has heard of the Hindu jugglers. Mr. 
Ward describes some tricks he saw done. Thus, 
the juggler spreads a cloth on the ground : in a 
moment a movement is seen under it : the cloth 
is raised and under it are pineapples growing. 
The juggler picks the fruit and presents it to the 
spectators to show that it is real. Again, he takes 
a large, clay jar, fills it with water, and turns it 
upside down to let the water run out ; when he 
turns it up again, it is full of water. Again, he 
puts a lean dog into a common basket ; opening 
it, he shows the dog with a litter of pups ; cover- 
ing these and opening again, there is a goat ; again 
the basket is put down and raised and shows a 
live pig; again — and the pig is dead with its 
throat cut ; then he ends the trick by again cov- 
ering and uncovering, when the pig is seen alive 



HINDUS. 105 

and well. How does he do it ? Almost as won- 
derful as these juggler's tricks are the perform- 
ances of the snake charmers. They carry the 
dreaded, poisonous cobras around in baskets and 
handle them, playing at the same time on their 




HINDU SNAKE CHARMERS (BREHM). 

little flutes, quite as if the creatures were entirely 
harmless. 

Nowhere in the world are there more dreadful 
religious customs than in India. People there 
are so crowded that life is hard. The result of 
this was that parents often destroyed their little 
babies, particularly girls. Often the mothers 
themselves threw the little beings into the sa- 



I06 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

cred river, where they were drowned in its waters 
or were eaten by crocodiles. At the great reli- 
gious festivals, men tortured themselves fearfully, 
or threw themselves under the chariot of the god 
that they might be crushed to death. The dead 
among the Hindus were usually cremated — 
burned upon a great open fire of wood. For- 
merly the widow of the dead man mounted the 
funeral pyre and was burned with his body. The 
English government has put an end to many of 
these practices, and among them this suttee, or 
burning of the widow. It has really done little 
good, as a widow's life is so sad that she might 
almost better die. A widow must shave her head, 
wear miserable clothing, and serve every one like 
a slave : she is despised and harshly treated. 

Few peoples have caused as much wonder as 
the Gypsies. With their swarthy complexions, 
black hair and eyes, and handsome faces, they 
are a striking type. They love out-door life, and 
hate to be within walls. They wander from place 
to place, pitching their tents where fancy leads 
them. They are tinkers, mending pots and ket- 
tles; they are horseshoers, jockeys, horse traders, 
horse doctors ; they tell fortunes, in which almost 
all of us believe a little, and every one fears them a 
little. There are many thousands of them in the 



TODAS. 107 

United States : there are many in Great Britain, 
Spain, Italy, Poland, and other European coun- 
tries ; they are in North Africa, in Mexico, in Bra- 
zil, in India. Everywhere they are the same, and 
everywhere they talk their own language, the 
Romany, It is believed that they first came 
from India, and that they are related to the 
Hindus. 

XIX. 

TODAS. 

In the " hill country " of India live many curi- 
ous brown peoples whose languages are different 
from the Aryan tongue of the Hindus. These 
peoples, called Dravidians, are considered the 
earliest occupiers of India. Among them no 
tribe is more curious than the Todas. In some 
ways they are like the Ainu. Though brown, 
they are probably really white or Caucasic. They 
have the features, strong beards, and hairy bodies 
of whites, and in these respects are like the Ainu. 

The Todas live on a tableland whose surface 
is covered with hills and rolling prairies. The 
hills are clad with coarse grass, and in some of 
the valleys are deep forests. The sunshine is 
bright and warm, and the dry season is long. 

The Todas think only of their cattle. They 



I08 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

do not hunt — in fact, they have no weapons; 
they do not cultivate any fields, getting what 
plant food they use from the Badagas and other 
neighboring tribes. But they do raise cattle — 
buffalo. Their villages are located in the midst 
of pasture land. No village is occupied for a 
whole year, but the people have always at least 
two villages and live first in one, then in the 
other. This is to have fresh pasture for their 
cattle and to be secure in the wet season. Toda 
villages contain but few houses, most of which 
consist of a single room eight feet square ; some- 
times two or three such rooms are set side by side 
— these do not open into each other, but each has 
an outside door. The roofs of these houses are 
thatched and project a yard or so beyond the 
house walls. The people sit under the shelter of 
these projecting roofs while they work or visit. 
There are no windows or chimneys to the houses. 
Everything in the house has its proper place — 
the pestle and mortar for pounding grain, the 
fireplace, and the raised bank of clay that serves 
the old people as a sleeping place. Near the 
house is a pen of stones and mud for the owner's 
cattle. 

All the cattle of the villages are herded to- 
geth^J*. There is one dairy for the village, and 



TODAS. 109 

all the cattle are milked there by special dairy- 
men. After milking, these men give out so much 
milk as is needed to every one in the village; 
from the balance they make butter which they 
divide to the men of the village according to 
the number of cattle each owns. We have 
already said that the Todas raise no crops. The 
Badagas and Kotas live on the land of the To- 
das ; they are stronger and more vigorous than 
the Todas, and both tribes have weapons and 
could easily defeat them in battle. But they live 
in peace with them and pay them, as rent for 
their land, grains and other produce they need. 
We have spoken of the common village herds. 
There are other (sacred) herds, which are cared 
for by dairymen priests, who are themselves al- 
most worshipped. The priest has an assistant 
who cuts wood for him and otherwise serves 
him. When the priest milks the sacred cows, 
and he alone may do so, he repeats a prayer. He 
does the same when he carries the milk into the 
dairy. The village people treat him and his assis- 
tant with great respect and may not touch them, 
nor any of the implements they use. Men and 
boys may go to the wall that encloses the dairy 
buildings, but may not enter. Women may not 
go near the place. 



no STRANGE PEOPLES. 

The cows in the sacred herds have descended 
from sacred cows of the past. In each herd there 
is an especially sacred "bell-cow." This means 
that she is the owner of an ancient cow-bell 
which the dairyman priest keeps in the dairy. 
It belonged to her mother before her and to 
her mother, and so on back. When a bell-cow 
dies, the bell has to be put upon her daughter. 
The priest brings it out from the dairy and waves 
it around and around the head of the cow morn- 
ing and night for three days. As he does so he 
says : — 

" What a fine cow your predecessor was. 
How well she supported us with milk ; 
Won't you supply us in like manner ? 
You are a god among us. 
Do not let the Tirieri ^ go to ruin. 
Let one become a thousand ! 
Let all be well ! 
Let us have plenty of calves ! 
Let us have plenty of milk ! " 

The cow wears the bell for three days and nights, 
after which it is taken off forever. It is not used 
again until the old cow dies and her daughter is 
then made bell-cow in her place. 

Perhaps you would like to know how the priest 

* Sacred dairy. 



TODAS. Ill 

fills his time? One day is much like another 
with him. When he rises he washes his face, 
hands, and teeth. He makes a little lamp from a 
leaf and after filling it with butter places five wicks 
in it. After lighting it he sets it to burn in front 
of the ancient bells and other sacred objects. He 




GROUP OF TODAS (VERNEAU). 

then takes his staff and bamboo milk pail and 
goes to milk the cows. He salutes them and 
prays to them before milking. Carrying the milk 
into the dairy, he sprinkles some drops upon the 
sacred bells as an offering and repeats the names 
of the gods. He then makes butter from the milk 
of the preceding day. His work is now done, and 



112 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

he prepares food for himself and his assistant. 
This man then drives the herd to pasture and 
gathers firewood. The last thing before going to 
sleep at night, the priest puts fresh butter and 
wicks into the little lamp before the bells. 

The Todas have other curious customs, but we 
have no space to describe them. Their saluta- 
tions, the naming of children, the yearly feast, 
when they eat a young buffalo bull (they rarely 
eat meat at any other time), and their funeral 
customs are all interesting. Every man who dies 
among the Todas has two funerals, called the 
green and the dry funeral, a year apart. 

XX. 

ANDAMANESE : MINCOPIES. 

East of British India and south of Cochin 
China in the Bay of Bengal are the Andaman 
Islands, on which the Mincopies live. They are 
small in stature, black or dark brown, with broad 
round heads, and crinkly or woolly hair. They 
are often called negritos^ or little negroes. 

An Englishman named Man lived for some 
years in the Andaman Islands and became much 
interested in the little blacks. He learned their 
language and has described their customs. 



ANDAMANESE: MINCOPIES. II3 

The Mincopies are true savages, living entirely 
on wild food ; they are gentle and non-savage in 
disposition. The islands are well supplied with 
food. " The sea which washes their coasts is full 
of fish and abounds with turtles ; the jungles are 
filled with wild pigs ; the bees furnish abundance 
of wild honey." From plants they get roots and 
fruits. They have no cultivated fields and no 
domestic animals. Although savages, these little 
people know how to build good houses. These 
are huts some thirty-five by forty feet ; the frame- 
work is of posts and poles and the firm thatch is 
of palm leaves. The huts are arranged about an 
oval or elliptical cleared space, where they hold 
their dances. When off on long hunting trips 
the Mincopies build rude shelters of branches and 
leaves. In their villages boys and girls, unless 
they are still babies, do not sleep in the houses 
with grown persons, but there are two special 
sleeping houses — one for boys and the other for 
girls. In the houses of the Mincopies fires are 
kept burning. It is said that these people do not 
know how to kindle fire ; if this is true, they are 
almost the only people who are ignorant of this 
important knowledge. They are careful of the 
fires they have and feed them well. 

Unless they think they have some reason to 



114 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

fear strangers, the Mincopies receive them kindly. 
The little children are taught to respect visitors. 
" They are the first served ; the best dishes are 
offered to them ; they are accompanied at their 
departure ; before separating they clasp hands, 
and instead of embracing they blow in each 
other's faces ; then they engage in an affectionate 
dialogue. Finally they separate with mutual 
promises of meeting again." 

The adoption of children is common among 
Mincopies. It is rare that any child remains with 
its parents after it is six or seven years old. Some 
friend of the family wishes to show his friendship 
and asks to adopt the child. The little one goes 
to his house and belongs to him. The parents 
may visit him in his new home, but no longer 
have any control over him. His new father may 
do what he likes with him, even to giving him 
away to some other person who may wish to 
adopt him. When children are about twelve 
years of age, they begin a fast, which is kept up 
until they are almost men and women ; during 
that time they must not eat turtle, pork, fish, or 
honey. After several years of thus fasting, they 
may again eat these foods. 

There are rules about foods for grown persons, 
too. During certain parts of the year they must 



ANDAMANESE: MINCOPIES. 1 15 

not eat some kinds of roots and fruits ; their god 
Puluga will be displeased if they do. Children 
must not eat the flesh of the two water animals, 
the dugong and porpoise. And to every person 
there is some one kind of food which he must not 
eat in all his life ; this forbidden food differs with 
the persons. 

We have said a good deal about the kindness 
of the Mincopies : they are not always good. 
They have their quarrels and battles like the 
rest of the world. They are quick-tempered and 
often become angry for a small offence. When 
a Mincopy is angry, he acts like a naughty child, 
striking and breaking everything around him, even 
his own choicest treasures. Trouble sometimes 
breaks out between two tribes in the midst of a 
feast. In their wars they destroy and carry off 
property ; they take no prisoners among the men, 
killing the wounded, but children of the enemy 
are usually kept alive and kindly treated. Some- 
times they try to harm enemies by witchcraft, or 
conjuring. They think that Puluga dislikes the 
smell of burning beeswax and will, in his anger, 
send forth a storm. So, when they know that 
their enemy is going fishing or hunting, they burn 
beeswax so that the angry Puluga will send a 
storm 



Il6 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

Most curious is the funeral of a child among the 
Andamanese. When a little one dies there is 
general weeping. Parents and friends paint their 
bodies with clay ; their heads are fresh shaved, and 
upon them, over the forehead, men place a lump 
of clay, while women put one upon the top of the 
head. The mother prepares the little body for 




ANDAMAN ISLANDERS CtYLOR). 

burial; she shaves and paints the head, neck, 
wrists, and knees with red ochre ; she then folds 
the little body together and wraps it in great 
leaves and binds the bundle thus made with cords. 
The grave is dug in the floor of the hut, under 
the fireplace. After gently blowing a few times 
upon the little face in farewell, the child is buried 



ANDAMANESE: MINCOPIES. 11/ 

and the fire is rebuilt over the grave. The mother 
leaves a few drops of her own milk in a cup on 
the grave. The hut is then deserted, a garland 
of rushes being fastened around it to show that 
a death has taken place. The whole village then 
moves, that the child's spirit may not be disturbed. 
After three months of mourning, they all return. 
The little skeleton is dug up, the bones are painted 
red or yellow and distributed as keepsakes to the 
friends, who wear them as necklaces in memory 
of the dead child. This seems dreadful to us, but 
our people often keep locks of hair cut from a 
dead child's head ; it is the same thing. At this 
time the lumps of clay, signs of mourning, are 
removed from the heads and foreheads. Some 
days later, there is a gathering of all the friends. 
The father, holding his remaining children in his 
arms, sings a mourning song: the women take 
part in the chorus, and all the rest cry noisily. 
The parents then dance " the dance of tears,'* 
after which they withdraw to the hut. The vis- 
itors keep up the dance some hours longer. 



Il8 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

XXI. 

ARABS. 

The old home of the Arabs was Arabia; to- 
day they are found not only in Arabia, but over 
half of Asia and all of Northern Africa. Their 
great wanderings began with the founding of 
Mohammedanism about the year 622 a.d. Full 
of zeal, the Arabs carried the new religion in 
every direction. 

The Arab is a white man, but a dark one. 
His language belongs to the Semitic family and 
resembles the old Hebrew language. Arabic is 
a soft and poetical language which is spoken to- 
day by myriads of people who are not Arabs by 
blood. The Arab is of moderate stature; he is 
thin but muscular, and has great endurance ; he 
has a long head and a narrow, oval face ; his 
nose is long, thin, and prominent; his hair and 
eyes are black. 

We always think of the Arab as dwelling in 
tents. This is only partly true. In Arabia 
itself about one-fourth of the Arabs are wandering 
tent-dwellers ; in Northern Africa, especially near 
the great desert, many are nomadic. But every- 
where we also find settled, town-inhabiting Arabs 
also. 



ARABS. 1 19 

The tents of the desert Arabs are large, low, 
and flat ; the covering is a firm wool and camel's- 
hair cloth. During the daytime, at least, the 
sides are raised to permit the air to circulate. 
These tents are easily taken down and packed, 
and as easily set up. Desert Arabs have flocks 
of sheep and herds of goats, camels, and horses. 
Every one has heard of the beauty, gentleness, 
and spirit of the Arabian horses — the finest 
perhaps in the world. Their owners love them 
and treat them as tenderly as children. Horses 
are rarely used by Arabs as draught animals or 
burden bearers, but only for riding. The camel 
it is upon which the Arab packs his heavy bur- 
dens for desert travel. The nomad Arab lives 
chiefly on food drawn from his flocks and herds. 
Mutton is his most important meat ; couscous is 
a favorite food (see Kabyles). The nomad Arabs 
are pillagers, and fall upon caravans of traders 
to rob them. Still they are hospitable to the 
stranger who comes to their tent asking shelter ; 
in fact, they treat him with the greatest polite- 
ness. A table is set before him ; he is given 
water to wash his hands ; the master himself 
receives the food from the servants and places it 
before his guest. The Arabs admire strength 
and agility, and at evening, before their tents, 



I20 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



the young men of the encampment practise 
tumbling, wrestling, hurling, and other feats of 
strength. 




CAMEL AND PALANQUIN (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 

The town Arabs live in comfortable houses. 
Most of these are of a single story, though some 
are of two; they enclose a central open court; 



ARABS. 121 

they are flat-roofed; a large gateway gives en- 
trance to the court, and is high enough for a 
man on horseback to ride through. The flat 
house tops make a favorite resting-place in the 
cool of the day. Streets in Arab towns are 
narrow, crooked, and filthy. In Arab towns 
are noticed at once many domes and minarets: 
the domes usually mark some famous grave ; the 
minarets, mosques. These graves are those of 
some pious Mohammedan saint. There are 
thousands of them to which the Arabs flock to 
say their prayers and to be cured of disease. 
Often at such tombs dervishes go through with 
their strange performances. Some pierce them- 
selves with swords, with no signs of pain ; others 
spin around and around on their heels until one 
wearies of watching them, and wonders why they 
do not fall. 

The town Arab is more particular about his 
religion than the Bedouin dweller in the desert. 
He must — and every good Mohammedan should 
— wash his hands before eating; he must pray 
five times a day with his face turned toward 
Mecca. Mecca is so sacred to them because it 
was the home of Mohammed ; every Arab and 
other good Mohammedan tries, once in his life, to 
go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he must see 



122 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

the Kaabah, or black-stone. Arabs are much 
given to pious exclamations. Thus before eating 
or beginning any business they say Bismallah^ 
which means In God's name, and on finishing the 
meal or successfully completing the business they 
say Hamdouallah, Praise God. This piety does 
not interfere with the town Arab driving hard 
bargains in business. He loves trade and money. 
He frequently goes in caravans to trade in other 
places. The Arabs, too, are the slave-traders 
in Africa. This cruel business has not yet been 
stopped completely. The traders buy negroes 
where they can, and hunt them almost like wild 
animals when they cannot buy them. In some 
places the hunted beings take refuge in trees, 
which have been prepared as places of safety 
from which they defend themselves. 

Formerly the Arabs were more important than 
now. Seven or eight hundred years ago Arabia 
was the world's centre of learning — or at least 
the Arab cities were. At a time, when Europe 
had lost much of what she once possessed, the 
Arab world was full of philosophers, physicians, 
poets, and astrologers. From the Arabs Europe 
gained much of the knowledge that we now pos- 
sess. But those bright days of Arabian glory 
are past. To-day the boys in Arab schools learn 



ARABS. 123 

little but reading, writing, and arithmetic. They 
learn long passages from the Koran — the sacred 
book of Mohammedanism. The little fellows — 
for girls do not go to school — sit on the floor, 
and all study aloud, the louder the better, be- 
cause then the teacher will know that they are 
studying. 

XXII. 

THE PEOPLES OF AFRICA : KABYLES. 

We rightly think of Africa as the home of the 
negroes, but it is a mistake to think that no other 
peoples dwell in that continent. The peoples of 
North Africa are white peoples ; their complex- 
ions are often dark, but in head, form, features, 
and character they are like Europeans, rather 
than negroes. There are many types in North 
Africa. There are the modern Egyptians, who 
look like their great and famous distant ances- 
tors ; there are the Berbers and Kabyles, of whom 
we shall say more later ; there are Arabs ; there 
are " Jews," especially in Algeria, Morocco, and 
the other Barbary States ; there are Moors also, 
who are a mixed people with some negro blood. 

True Negro-Africa begins near the Equator 
and stretches southward. The Sudan is the 



124 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

great negro country. There are four areas in 
this Sudanese negro belt : the upper Nile valley, 
the Sudan proper, the Senegambian district, and 
Guinea. In these four sections the people are 
negroes, though here and there somewhat mixed. 
Most of Africa south of this negro belt is occu- 
pied by negroids, who consist of many tribes 
and resemble negroes in their narrow heads and 
woolly hair; they are, however, less dark in color, 
more graceful in build, and more intelligent. 
Scattered here and there in Equatorial Africa 
are bands of Pygmies, men and women among 
whom are like boys and girls among us in size. 
In far Southern Africa live the Bushmen and 
Hottentots, among negroid tribes. 

The Kabyles are among the most interesting 
of North African peoples. There are two types, 
the dark and the light Kabyles. The latter have 
light skin, fair hair, blue eyes, and much resemble 
the light whites of Europe. The Kabyles are 
tall, well built, and active. They are industrious 
and love labor. They are a mountain people 
and love their home. Their towns are located 
upon the slopes or on the summits. The houses 
are usually of one story and have flat roofs. 
There are two rooms, — one for the family and 
the other for the animals. When there are two 



THE PEOPLES OF AFRICA: KABYLES. 



125 



stories to a house, it shows that the owner has 
a married son living with him ; the upper story 
has been built above the old house for the young 
couple. A little garden always surrounds the 
house. The Kabyl country is rather cold, and 




GROUP OF KABYLES: ALGERIA (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 

the houses are not widely separated, so that they 
assist in protecting each other against the winds. 
In winter the family lives in a sort of cellar under 
the house. 

The Kabyles work hard to raise their little 
crops. Their fields are down in valleys or are 



126 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

terraced out on the hill slopes. They raise 
barley, wheat, gourds, cucumbers, and melons ; 
they raise flax; they have some common culti- 
vated plants that have been introduced from 
Mexico, as the prickly-pear cactus, maguey, maize, 
tobacco, and potato. The prickly pear and mag- 
uey are so common that landscapes in Algeria 
resemble those of Mexico. The Kabyles raise 
apples, pears, apricots, olives, figs, grapes, and 
nuts. They keep bees, and have quite a trade 
in wax. The men are good workers in metals 
and leather, and trade their wares to their 
neighbors. 

The women, like all women in the Mohamme- 
dan world, delight in jewelry and ornaments, and 
as they are not wearers of veils they have a good 
chance to display their treasures. Couscous is a 
favorite food in Northern Africa, not only among 
Kabyles, but Arabs and other peoples. Kabyl 
women spend much of their time in its prepara- 
tion. Flour is mixed with water into a sort of 
thick dough, which is divided into little masses 
which are rolled between the fingers. These 
little pellets, almost like seeds, they steam and 
eat with bits of meat and hot, peppery sauce. 

The Kabyles love horseback riding, and are 
bold hunters. They fight bravely in defence of 



THE PEOPLES OF AFRICA: KABYLES. 



127 



their homes. Among their amusements, perhaps 
falconry stands first. The falcon, you know, is a 
bird much like a hawk, which is trained to chase 
and kill or capture smaller birds or animals. It 




MAKING COUSCOUS IN THE DESERT (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH). 

is carried to the field by the hunter on horse- 
back. The bird is perched upon its master's 
wrist, and is blinded by a hood over its head. 
When the hunter sees game, he unhoods the fal- 
con and lets it fly after the victim. 



128 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

XXIII. 

NEGROES. 

We have already spoken of the district of true 
negroes. In the Sudan they are at their best 
and purest type. The skin is almost black; 
the head long and narrow ; the face narrow ; the 
hair kinky and woolly. The lower part of the 
face projects far beyond the upper part. The 
lips are thick. Negroes have an odor which is 
peculiar to them, and which most white persons 
dislike. Many of the negro tribes are composed 
of persons who are tall, strong, and well built. 

Almost all negroes are agriculturists, living in 
settled villages. Their houses are usually round 
huts. The Bongo of the upper Nile build huts 
about twenty feet in diameter and the same in 
height, which are firm and well built, though 
made only of poles and thatch. The entrance is 
so low that one crawls into the hut on hands and 
knees. On the conical roof are built benches of 
straw, on which persons sit to overlook and guard 
the planted fields. The floor inside the hut is 
made of hard, well-beaten clay. Skins of animals 
serve as beds. The Wolofs of the Sudan make 
very similar huts, but do not construct the seats 
on the roof. Among both tribes they build little 



NEGROES. 129 

granaries near the huts ; these are made of basket- 
work and are set up on posts to place them out 
of reach of animals. 

The African negroes are fond of bright colors 
and tawdry ornaments. Objects of metal and glass 
beads are particularly prized. They use rings of 
iron, copper, and brass of all sizes for the arms, 
legs, and fingers. Sometimes so many rings will 
be put upon the arms that they completely cover 
them. The negroes in some tribes pierce ears, 
noses, and lips for inserting ornaments. The 
Bongo women, for example, pierce a series of holes 
along the rim of each ear, along the edges of the 
nose, and at the corners of the mouth, and through 
each hole they thrust a short bit of grass stalk. 
The men in negro tribes often bear a tribal mark ; 
this is usually the scar or scars left by cutting lines 
or patterns on the face or chest. Thus the mark 
of one tribe might be three cuts across each cheek; 
that of another a pattern of criss-cross lines upon 
the forehead ; another tribe in the central lake 
district had a line of wart-like swellings, at equal 
distances from each other, extending from the 
root of the nose to the top of the forehead. All 
these tribal marks were cut in childhood, and the 
cutting must have been painful. It is said that 
the Bornu baby boys have one hundred and three 



I30 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

cuts made on their little bodies for their tribal 
sign. 

African negroes often dress their hair into 
•strange and curious forms, as do also the neigh- 
Doring negroids. They build it up into great 
horns, train it out in little strings, the ends of 
which they fasten to a wooden ring, build it into 
thick mats or wigs, and insert all sorts of fibres, 
beads, and ornaments in it. Of course such care- 
fully trained hair must not be spoiled by lying on 
it, so they have the same sort of wooden pillows 
as the Fiji Islanders, to keep the head off the 
ground. 

These wooden pillows are often decorated with 
carvings of human and animal figures. Many ne- 
groes delight in wood-carving and sometimes make 
strange masses of many human and animal fig- 
ures crowded together in the most curious way. 
These they paint in bright colors. Near the west 
coast of Africa several tribes are ivory carvers, 
and their artists will cover an elephants tusk with 
human figures, animal forms, and geometrical 
designs; no space will be lost; every spot will be 
filled. 

Most of the negro tribes know how to weave, 
and some of their cloth made from grass or 
vegetable fibres is closely and well woven. The 



NEGROES. 



131 



most remarkable art of the negroes, however, is 
their working of iron. They know how to get 
iron from its ore and to work it into desired forms. 
They build a little conical smelting furnace or oven 
of clay, into which they put their fuel and ore. 
They then blow air through the fire with their 
rude bellows. This consists of two earthen ves- 




NEGRO SMITHS AT WORK (RATZEL). 

sels, or boxes of some sort, over the top of which 
bladders or skin are tied ; tubes lead from these 
vessels and the lower end of a stick is tied to the 
middle of each bladder covering. The smith 
takes the upper ends of the sticks in his hands 
and works them up and down, first one and then 
the other. He thus forces air first into one tube 



132 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

and then into the other: these two tubes end in 
a single clay tube which conducts the air into 
the furnace. After the blacksmith gets his iron 
from the ore he works it with heat and beating to 
the forms wanted. At Benin City, which was at 
the head of a dreadful negro kingdom, they had 
learned how to cast bronze and made wonderful 
objects in it. They made rings, bells, animal fig- 
ures, plaques with human figures represented on 
them, and masks of the human head of life size. 

Negroes love music and have many instru- 
ments, not only rattles, drums, whistles, flutes, 
and trumpets, but stringed instruments also. In 
some tribes there are wandering minstrels, who 
go from place to place playing on their three- 
stringed guitar and singing songs in praise of 
the chief or king whom they visit. They sing in 
his praise if he pays them well ; if, however, he 
is stingy, their songs make bitter fun of him. 
These minstrels are either men or women : they 
are feared and disliked, but well treated, as no 
one wishes to gain their ill wull. 

Some of the most brutal and cruel acts in the 
world are done among negro kingdoms like 
Ashanti, Dahomey, and Benin. No human life 
is there safe. The king orders instant death to 
those who offend him. The executioner's knife 



NEGROES. 133 

is kept busy. Cruel butcheries are connected 
with their religion, and sometimes the king will 
have dozens, scores, or even hundreds of men 
killed to carry messages to his dead father. It is 
also among negroes that we find cannibalism 
existing in revolting forms and frightful belief in 
witchcraft. Any old man or old woman may be 
accused, at any time, of being a witch : it takes 
little to prove their guilt, and they are speedily 
executed. 

Negroes often believe that some men can 
change themselves into wild animals and then 
resume their own form. They are especially 
afraid of man-leopards: not unfrequently men 
who have been thought to be such have been 
executed. We cannot, however, blame the ne- 
groes much for such ideas. Not long ago white 
Europeans generally believed in werewolves (or 
manwolves), and there are still districts in Europe 
where such beliefs exist. 

Many African negroes wear charms to pro- 
tect themselves against harm. Such charms are 
called gri'gris. Almost anything may be a gri- 
gri : a part of some animal, a plant, a curious 
stone. Where the negroes have had much to 
do with Arabs or other Mohammedans a favorite 
gri-gri is a verse from the Koran, written on 



134 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

paper done up in a little leathern pouch and 
hung about the neck. Sometimes a man will be 
almost covered with gri-gris. He may have so 
many " as to weigh thirty pounds," and they may 
hamper him so " that he must be helped in 
mounting a horse." 

We have already told you that the Arabs still 
hunt negro slaves. Many of the negro tribes 
themselves keep slaves — thus the Wolofs do so. 
They, however, treat their slaves more kindly 
than the Arabs do. 

XXIV. 

NEGROIDS. 

The negroids of Southern and Eastern Africa 
resemble the negroes. They are generally tall; 
they have a fine dark brown color, long narrow 
heads, hair less kinky and woolly than the 
negroes, flat nose and thick lips. They do not 
have the negro's odor. The negroids comprise 
many different tribes, but all speak related lan- 
guages known as the Bantu languages. The 
tribes we shall consider are the Zulus, Kaffirs, 
and Waganda. 

The Zulus and Kaffirs wear generally but 
little clothing. A man wears a cord about the 



NEGROIDS. 135 

waist with flaps of leather hanging from it in 
front and behind; the woman wears a fringed 
girdle about her waist. Sometimes they wear a 
mantle of hairy skins. At great festivals the 
men deck themselves finely. A traveller, describ- 
ing a young man who was going visiting, says : 
" He will wear furs, among them the Angora 
goat ; feathers in his head-dress ; globular tufts 
of beautiful feathers on his forehead or at 
the back of his head ; eagle feathers in fine 
head-dresses, as also ostrich, lory, and peacock 
feathers. He ties so many tufts and tails to his 
waist girdle that he may almost be said to wear a 
kilt." 

The negroids, like the negroes, are agricultu- 
rists and live in towns of huts. Some tribes are 
raisers of cattle and have large herds that yield 
milk, meat, and skins. They are hunters, too, 
and that on a large scale. They set up long 
hedges or lines of brush and stakes, which con- 
verge toward certain points where they dig pits 
and cover them. They then scatter over a large 
district and beat it, scaring in the animals and 
driving them between the lines of brush into the 
pits, where they easily kill them. 

The two great weapons of the southern ne- 
groids are the kerry and the assegai. The kerry 



136 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

is a short wooden club with a knob at the end 
This is thrown at the game. The assegai is a 
spear, the shaft of which is long and slender and 
the head of which, made of iron, is long and wide. 
Assegais are used all through South and Central 
Africa. The form and size of the blade varies 
with tribes: sometimes it is two feet in length 
and several inches across. Mrs. French-Sheldon 
saw the assegai maker, in one tribe she visited, 
using a natural leaf as his pattern, and he was 
careful to exactly copy its form. Both negro and 
negroid tribes in some parts of Africa, especially 
Western Central Africa, use throwing-knives; they 
are made from a flat piece of iron, worked into 
several blades projecting in different directions. 
They are thrown through the air, and some one 
of the ugly blades is quite sure to strike. 

Kaffirs and Zulus make long oval shields almost 
as tall as themselves, for protection in battle. A 
cowskin, with the hair on, is stretched over a light 
and simple wooden frame. Each great section of 
Africans has its own kind of shield. The Niam- 
Niams and some Congo tribes weave beautiful 
close and light shields of wicker or basket work ; 
they are long and narrow, and protect the whole 
body. The splints of which they are woven differ 
in color and are worked into rather handsome 



NEGROIDS. 



137 



patterns. In Nubia they use shields made of 
thick and heavy hide, like elephant or rhinoceros 
hide ; these are circular, not very large, and have 
a round or conical knob or boss raised at the 
centre. 

Kaffirs and Zulus are fond of war and are brave 




WAGANDA MUSICIANS (RATZEL). 



in battle. They have war dances in which they 
are inflamed for the fray. A Kaffir who slays an 
enemy may have a great gash cut in his leg on his 
return home to show that fact. The scars of 
such gashes are objects of great pride. The Kaf- 
firs are fine speakers and their speeches on impor- 
tant occasions are stirring and impressive. Like 



138 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

negroes, the negroids delight in music and have 
many instruments. None, however, is a greater 
favorite than the noisy drum. 

Among Zulus and Kaffirs, the sorcerer is much 
feared and dreaded. When men are ill, or in 
trouble, they go to him for help and advice. He 
goes through with many strange performances. 
The people believe that he can detect thieves and 
find stolen property, that he can bewitch and cure 
bewitchment ; he is frequently, also, a rain-maker. 
There is much jealousy between the sorcerers or 
rain-makers in a tribe, and they sometimes chal- 
lenge each other to tests of their power. The 
description of such a test between two rain-makers, 
in one of Rider Haggard's books, is probably true 
to life. 

XXV. 

PYGMIES. 

Many centuries ago, the Greek writers. Homer, 
Herodotus, and Aristotle, spoke of dwarf peoples, 
whom they called Pygmies^ living in Africa. On 
an ancient Egyptian wall there is painted a queer 
little dwarf -like figure with the word Akka written 
near it. It is plain that little African peoples 
were known both to the Greeks and Egyptians. 
But for hundreds of years after the old Greek 



PYGMIES. 139 

writers and Egyptian artists were dead, no one 
believed in real Pygmies. Every one felt that 
the accounts of them were " travellers' lies," told 
to amuse people. But travellers who have been 
going into Africa during the last two hundred 
years and more have from time to time told us 
of such tribes, and to-day there can be no doubt 
of their existence. There are really Pygmies, and 
they are curious and interesting. 

When the great German traveller Schweinfurth 
was visiting King Munza of the Monbuttus in 
"the heart of Africa," he learned that tribes of 
Pygmies lived near. There were nine clusters 
of them, and they were called Akkas — just like 
the little creature represented on the old Egyp- 
tian wall — and each cluster had its own chief. 
At one time Schweinfurth saw several hundred 
' of these little people together. Munza traded 
one of these Pygmies, whose name was Neevoue, 
to Schweinfurth. The traveller was kind to the 
little fellow, and wanted to take him to Germany, 
but Neevoue died in Egypt. He was a cruel 
little creature, not very bright, and had great 
difficulty in learning. Later on, in Ashango 
Land, much farther to the west, Du Chaillu 
found the dwarf Obongos, whom he described, 
and whose houses he pictured. An Italian trav- 



I40 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



eller named Miani secured two Akkas in trade. 
He planned to take them to Italy, but he died on 
his journey home. His two Pygmies, however, 
reached Italy, where a kind-hearted nobleman 




HUTS OF ASHANGO-LAND DWARFS (DU CHAILLU). 

took care of them. They were gay and happy, 
though fitful, and were rather quick to learn ; 
they learned to speak, read, and write Italian. 

So much was known about the Pygmies before 
Stanley's journey. He saw many of them, and 
tells a good deal about them and their life. The 
Akkas were the tribe he saw. They measure 
from three feet to four feet and six inches ; a full- 



PYGMIES. 141 

grown man weighs about ninety pounds. Some 
of them have long heads, long, narrow faces, 
small, reddish eyes placed near together, and are 
sour looking and morose. The others have 
round faces with fine, large, bright eyes placed 
wide apart, high foreheads, skin of a rich ivory- 
yellow color. All African Pygmies seem to have 
their bodies covered with short, rather stiff, gray- 
ish hair. Stanley says the Akkas place their 
villages near the towns of bigger people, and that 
sometimes eight to twelve Pygmy villages will 
surround one negro (or negroid) town. These 
Pygmies are lively and active ; they do not culti- 
vate any plants, but devote themselves to hunting. 

They use little bows and arrows, and small 
spears. The tips of the arrows and spears are 
often poisoned. With these weapons these little 
folk attack and kill antelopes, buffalo, and even 
elephants. They dig pitfalls and make traps. 
Some of their traps are like sheds, the roofs- of 
which are held in place by vines ; bananas and 
nuts are placed in these as bait ; when chimpan- 
zees or other animals try to take the bait, the 
roof falls. The Pygmies catch birds for their 
feathers, and hunt for wild honey. 

The Pygmies use two kinds of arrow poison. 
One is dark and thick and made from the leaves 



142 STRANGE PEOPLE& 

of a plant quite like our Jack-in-the-pulpit or 
Indian turnip. The other is believed to be made 
from red ants, — which are dried and crushed to 
powder, — mixed with palm oil. Both are said 
to act quickly when fresh. Stanley mentions 
one man who died within one minute from a 
small wound in his right arm and chest. When 
the poison is old it acts less rapidly. 

These Pygmies live in low oval huts, with 
doors two or three feet high. The houses are 
arranged in a circle about an open cleared space, 
in which the chief's house stands. About one 
hundred yards from the village, along every path 
that leads to it, is a little guard house, only 
big enough for two Pygmies. These are guard 
houses and toll stations, and all strangers who 
pass must pay toll. The Pygmies are usually on 
good terms with their big neighbors, and both 
are useful to the other. The little people sell 
their ivory, skins, honey, and poison to their 
neighbors, or trade them for vegetable food. 
The Pygmies, keen and watchful, are good 
pickets for the others, and often warn them of 
danger from approaching enemies. 



BUSHMEN AND HOTTENTOTS I43 

XXVI. 

BUSHMEN AND HOTTENTOTS. 

Far to the south in Africa, in and about the 
Desert of Kalahari, live the Bushmen. They are 
somewhat like the Pygmies. They are little — full- 
grown men being from four feet to four feet six 
inches in stature. They are of a yellow-brown 
color; their hair is black and kinky, but appears 
to grow in little tufts with bare spaces between ; 
the jaws project and the lips are thick; they 
wrinkle early. They are quick and lively in 
movements, and are bold hunters. 

Little bands of them wander from place to 
place, without any fixed home. They build no 
houses. Usually they live in holes among the 
rocks ; at most, they build rude, temporary shel- 
ters. They live chiefly on game, which they kill 
with the bow and arrow, or sometimes with the 
spear. They sometimes trail an animal a long 
distance, and when they overtake and kill it, stop 
at the spot to eat it. They are wonderful at 
following the trail of either animals or men, and 
see signs of their having passed which a white 
man would never notice. They get a hard liv- 
ing; they gather seeds and roots, fruits and 
gums; they hunt the honey of wild bees; they 



144 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

catch lizards and snakes. They are so fond of 
the white grubs, or pupse of ants — which we usu- 
ally, but wrongly, call ants* eggs — that the 
Boers, living near the little people, call them 
" Bushmen's rice." They also eat the huge eggs 
of the ostrich, and make water vessels out of the 
empty shells. 

Their bows are small and their arrows are 
hardly more than a foot in length ; the points of 
bone, stone, or iron are poisoned, and are so 
attached to the shaft that they separate and re- 
main in the wound. The spear and darts which 
they use are also small and have poisoned tips. 
In the quivers with their arrows they carry a 
little sharpening stone for grinding the points 
and a brush for applying the poison. For dig- 
ging roots the Bushmen use a pointed stick, 
which is weighted with a stone ring. These 
few simple weapons and tools are all that these 
poor people possess, except a few wooden dishes 
and a smoking pipe, which is said to be owned 
by a whole family or band. 

Livingstone says that their arrow poison comes 
from a sort of caterpillar or grub, which they 
crush and dip the arrow tip into. They always 
clean their nails carefully after handling the poison, 
as it causes damage if it comes into contact with 



BUSHMEN AND HOTTENTOTS. 



145 



any scratch or cut. The pain caused by the 
poison is so great as almost to make the man 
who has been wounded crazy. When a Hon has 
been struck with one of these poisoned arrows he 
roars terribly and bites and tears the ground and 
trees. To cure 
a person who 
has been bitten 
they use an oint- 
ment made of 
the crushed cat- 
erpillar mixed 
with grease. 
They believe 
that the cater- 
pillar is hungry 
for grease; when 
it does not find 
tat m a person gora-player: bushman (ratzel). 

it kills him ; 

when they supply it the fat it wants, it does no 
harm. It is said that this caterpillar is sacred 
and that they pray to it, asking it to give them 
plenty of game when they are hunting. 

These little people are fond of music and 
drawing. Their finest musical instrument is a 
gora. This is a hunter's bow, with a ring on 




146 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

the bow string. By sliding this ring they change 
the note which it gives when twanged. The 
twang of a bowstring is not a very loud sound ; 
to increase it a gourd is hung to the lower end 
of the bow. All over the country of the Bush- 
men cliffs and the walls of caves are covered with 
their pictures, which represent animals, birds, and 
men ; hunting scenes and battles are also rep- 
resented. These pictures are sometimes just 
pecked out in the rock; sometimes they are 
painted ; sometimes they are first pecked out and 
then filled with color. The colors most used in 
these pictures are red, yellow, and black. 

The negroid Kaffirs and the Hottentots who 
live near the poor Bushmen hate them and harm 
them. Meeting them on the road, they some- 
times kill them without pity. In 1804 a Kaffir 
who went to Cape Town on business found a 
Bushman boy eleven years old working as a ser- 
vant in the government building. He killed the 
little fellow with a spear. This, of course, was 
long ago, but it shows how the Kaffirs despise 
the Bushmen. 

The Hottentots live near the Bushmen and are 
a mixture between them and the negroids. They 
are taller than the Bushmen, but have much the 
same yellowish brown skin color and the same 



BUSHMEN AND HOTTENTOTS. 147 

sort of hair. Their language, too, is much like 
that of the Bushmen. In both languages there 
are some strange sounds, hard for white men to 
pronounce, called " clicks." These sounds come 
in the middle of words, and are called " clicks " 
because they sound something hke the sound 




BUSHMAN ROCK PICTURE (RATZEL). 

made in driving horses. Among the Bushmen 
there are nine different sounds of this kind ; the 
Hottentots have only four. 

The Hottentots are cattle-raisers, but do not 
cultivate plants. They gather wild fruits and 
dig roots. They move with their herds from 
one pasture to another; their settlements are 



148 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

called kraals. Their huts are dome-shaped and 
consist of a light framework of poles over which 
mattings are hung. When they move it takes 
only a few minutes to take the houses to pieces 
and pack them on to their cattle. The huts are 
always set up in a circle, enclosing a clear space 
where the cattle are herded. 

Both men and women of the Hottentots wear 
fur caps, and it is considered indecent for a 
woman to be seen with her head bare. Hotten- 
tot clothing consists of leather aprons and cloaks. 
Hottentots rarely kill their cattle, which they 
keep for milk rather than for meat. 

They are quite warlike, and each tribe has a 
leader. They honor brave warriors. They are 
gay in disposition and like to say sharp and funny 
things about each other; this often leads to quarrels 
and fights. When a man is angry with another, 
he takes a handful of dust and offers it to him ; if 
the offender is willing to fight, he seizes the hand 
and scatters the dust on the ground ; if he refuses 
to fight, the angry man throws the dust upon him 
to show that he is a coward. In fighting to settle 
quarrels, they kick and club each other and even 
use spears. 

The Hottentots have many songs and prayers 
which they repeat to, or about, their sacred beings. 



BUSHMEN AND HOTTENTOTS. 



149 



Among their stories are some about the rabbit and 
his adventures. They worship the stars which we 
call the Pleiades. When these stars rise for the 
first time in the year, the people greet them. 
Mothers take their babies in their arms and teach 
them to stretch out their little hands toward the 




HOTTENTOT KRAAL (RATZEL). 

friendly stars. They then have a dance and sing 
a song in honor of one of their gods. There is 
a large insect called the mantis^ which, when it 
stands still, raises its long front legs into a curious 
position ; the Hottentots think that it is praying. 
When a praying mantis appears in a kraal every 
one is pleased, as they think if brings good luck. 



150 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

No one thinks of killing it, and they make an 
offering to it. 

When a Hottentot man goes hunting, his wife 
kindles a fire at home and does nothing while 
he is gone but carefully tend it. They believe if 
she lets it go out that he will fail in his hunting. 
Hottentot conjurers are thought to be great snake- 
charmers. It is said that they can hiss in such 
a way that all the snakes in the district will be 
attracted to them. So much are these conjurers 
feared that every one wears some object about him 
to protect himself against their power. 

xxvn. 

MALAYS. 

The Malays live in the Malay Peninsula, on the 
great islands near it, — Sumatra, Borneo, and Java, 
— and on a host of lesser islands in that part of 
the world. They also form part of the population 
of the great island, Madagascar, lying east of Africa. 

They are short, with brown skin, dark eyes, 
straight and coarse black hair, and broad, round 
heads. Their forms are slight and graceful. They 
are active and gay, quick and intelligent ; they are 
easily offended, do not readily forgive injuries, and 
are often deceitful and treacherous. 



MALAYS. 151 

The Malays are believed to have come from the 
continent of Asia not more than three thousand 
years ago. 

They are fairly industrious in working their 
fields, the most important crop from which is rice. 
They have other crops, however, and also raise 
many fruits. They use the buffalo as a help in 
field work and for drawing carts. Those Malays 
who live near the coast fish, and use both fresh 
and salted fish for food. They are good sailors, 
making journeys by water to China, Australia 
and other islands. They are shrewd in trading. 
Formerly, many Malays were bold pirates, as in- 
deed in some parts they still are. 

Malay houses are usually built of boards, are 
rectangular in form, and have a two-pitched roof. 
They are almost everywhere, set up on posts quite 
high above ground, and must be reached by means 
of ladders. 

The Malays are great chewers of betel nut. A 
piece of the nut is mixed with a little lime, placed 
in a leaf, and chewed. It colors the saliva red 
and stains the teeth a brownish black. So used 
are the Malays to these stained teeth that they no 
longer admire white teeth. Of a man whose teeth 
are not stained with betel they will say, " he has 
teeth like a dog," and seem to consider it a dis- 



152 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



grace. They even chip off or file away the 
enamel on the front of the teeth of children so 
that they may become sooner blackened. 

All Malays like amusement; even the most 
civilized celebrate many festivals. Animal fights 




MALAY FAMILY: JAVA (VERNEAU). 

and theatrical performances are favorites. Almost 
every man among the Malays keeps a fighting 
cock of which he is proud and fond ; while he 
works in his field, the bird is tied by a cord to a 
stake near him, and he stops now and again to 



MALAYS. 153 

stroke and pet him. Cock-fights take place fre- 
quently, but the birds are not allowed — as in 
Mexico — to kill each other. The bull-fights in 
the Malay region are also much less cruel than 
those of Mexico and Spain. In these countries 
the bull is made to fight against a trained com- 
pany of human fighters ; among the Malays he 
fights another animal of his own kind. The Ma- 
lay buffalo-tiger fight is famous. A buffalo and 
tiger are placed in a pen together and then excited 
until they attack each other. The buffalo is quite 
frequently the victor. Most curious, however, is 
the battle between crickets. The contest between 
these insects is watched with great interest and 
excitement by the Malays. It occurs also in 
Japan. 

Malays delight in dances and the theatre. At the 
World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago there 
was a complete Javanese village. It contained a 
dance house where dances were given to the sound 
of the strange gongs and other musical instru- 
ments of the Javan people. The dancing was by 
girls who were gayly dressed in velvet, silk, and 
satin with gold and silver tinsel. They wore cu- 
rious gilt helmets. They did not dance with their 
feet, but kept time to the music by graceful move- 
ments of the arms, hands, head, and eyes. In the 



154 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



same building they gave plays, in which the play- 
ers wore small and curious masks of wood. In 
other plays, somewhat like our Punch and Judy, 
puppets were moved and played the parts. The 
Javanese also have shadow plays, where jointed 




BUFFALO CART: JAVA (RATZEL). 

human figures, cut from cardboard, are moved by 
sticks and their shadows are thrown upon a screen. 
" Running amuck " is fearfully common among 
Malays. Suddenly a man, on the street or in 
some public place, becomes insane with a desire 
to kill. Seizing a weapon, he starts down a street 
filled with people and strikes right and left at 



MALAYS. 155 

every one as he runs. The police hurry after the 
murderer and are usually compelled to kill him 
before his dreadful work can be stopped. The 
Malays are really a nervous and excitable people ; 
it is said that frequently a steady look at a person 
will throw him into a trance or hypnotized state. 
Of the various weapons used by the Malays 
the kris seems to be the favorite. In Java this 
was often a remarkable object. A kris is a short 




KRISES: JAVA (RATZEL). 

sword or dagger with a fine steel blade which 
ends in a point, and the sides of which are wavy 
instead of straight. Probably they think of this 
as a stinging serpent ; anyway the handle is fre- 
quently in the form of a serpent's head. Some- 
times this handle is finely carved and often it is 
set with gems. Some that belonged to the old 
Javan princes were a mass of precious stones. 
The sheath for the kris might be plain, but it 



156 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

might also be decorated with carvings or encrusted 
with jewels. 

Strangest of the Malays are the Dyaks of Bor- 
neo and the Battaks of Sumatra. Both are a 
little larger and have longer heads than the Java- 
nese. The Dyaks are great " head hunters." No 
man is respected until he has brought in a head 
as a trophy. Usually only the skull is kept; 
sometimes this will be engraved with patterns or 
stained with coloring matter; sometimes designs 
are cut in the bone and foil is set in the patterns. 
The Battaks are industrious and have made prog- 
ress in many ways. They have a system of 
writing. Inscriptions are usually carved upon 
staves of bamboo; they also have books made 
of strips of palm or other vegetable substances. 
The Battaks are among the most dreadful of 
cannibals. 

XXVIII. 

THE PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES. 

The Philippine Islands lie northeast from the 
great Malay Islands. The group extends for one 
thousand miles and includes almost two thousand 
islands of sizes from barren rock masses too small 
for use up to the great Island of Luzon, which is 
about the size of Ohio. All together the islands 



THE PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES. 1 57 

have an area equal to that of New York and the 
New England States united. It is uncertain how 
large a population occupy the islands, but it is 
probably between seven and eight million. 

Dr. Blumentritt, an Austrian who has studied 
the Philippine peoples for many years, says that 
fifty-one different languages are spoken among 
them. He thinks that the peoples have come at 
various times to the islands from various places. 
He believes that the first people here were the 
negritos and that they once occupied the whole 
region. Perhaps three thousand years ago Malay 
tribes, a good deal like the Dyaks of Borneo, 
crowded in upon the unfortunate little natives, 
seizing their land and driving them into the 
mountains of the interior and to the more remote 
parts of the coast. Later, from eighteen hundred 
to fourteen hundred years ago, other Malays 
crowded in, but this time they were more like 
those of Java. Much later, only about five hun- 
dred years ago, a third lot of Malays, bold and 
hardy seamen, began a movement into the islands. 
But just then the Spaniards discovered the Phil- 
ippines and checked these pirates before they had 
gained much of a foothold. Blumentritt speaks 
of these invasions of Malays as the first, second, 
and third Malay migrations. 



158 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



The negritos, or old population, are a little 
people much like the Mincoples of the Anda- 
man Islands. They are short, black skinned, and 
crinkly haired. They do not live to be old, but a 
person of thirty or forty looks as if much older. 

They build no true 
houses; in bad weather 
they put up rude shel- 
ters. They are wan- 
derers and have no 
agriculture; they make 
no pottery; they wear 
but little clothing ; 
some scar or tattoo ; 
they are fond of orna- 
ments. Their chief 
weapon is the bow and 
arrow, though they 
also have spears. 
They are skilful in 
throwing stones. 

They make fire by 
friction, sawing one sharp piece of bamboo across 
another. If a negrito dies, his fellows believe he 
was bewitched by some Tagal or other Malay, 
and will not be satisfied until one has been killed 
in revenge. When two negritos wish to swear 




PHILIPPINE NEGRITO (mEYER). 



THE PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES. 1 59 

friendship, they cut their arms and each sucks 
blood from the other ; they thus become of one 
blood and are like brothers. They used to send 
messages by knotting grass which either had a 
meaning itself or helped the person who carried 
it to remember what he had been told. There 
are now perhaps twenty thousand negritos and 
they live mostly on the larger islands — Luzon, 
Mindanao, and Negros. 

Many tribes in the Philippines represent the 
first Malay invasion. They are much alike in 
life and character; all are bold and cruel; most 
of them are head-hunters. They depend, in part, 
on agriculture, and have settled villages which 
are usually in the mountains or forests. The 
Igorrotes are a good example of them. They 
live in North Luzon. Both men and women 
tattoo; they gild their teeth and are fond of 
ornaments. The men go armed with spears, 
bows and arrows, and knives. Their peculiar 
weapon, however, is a hatchet-knife called ligua ; 
the thin broad blade, set like that of a hatchet, 
has a concave cutting edge which runs into a 
long point above. The houses of the Igorrotes 
are large, rectangular, and raised on piles. These 
people are good agriculturists, tending their 
fields — which they irrigate — with care. The 




H 
O 
04 
(4 
O 
O 

O 

Ml 

o 



THE PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES. l6l 

girls of the village are in charge of an old woman, 
and they all live and sleep together in one special 
house ; this is unlike the other houses of the 
village and is not set up on posts. The Igor- 
rotes have much respect for the souls of their 
ancestors. In each village there is a sacred tree 
in which they believe these souls abide. Though 
industrious and settled the Igorrotes are dread- 
ful head-hunters. They organize war-parties to 
attack neighboring tribes for victims. The party 
shown in the picture were on such an errand. 
Only a few days after the photograph was taken 
they fell upon a Tingian village, killed thirty-nine 
persons, and carried away twenty-five heads as 
trophies. 

The Tagals, one of the tribes of the second 
invasion, are the most important of the Philip- 
pine peoples. They industriously work their 
fields and raise rice, yams, maize, and several 
fleshy-root plants. Of fruits they cultivate man- 
goes, bananas, pineapples, cocoanuts, and others. 
Of industrial plants they produce manila hemp, 
cotton, indigo, and tobacco. Many of these 
plants they have only had since the coming of 
the Spaniards. They have long had domestic 
animals, among them the buffalo, pig, dog, hens, 
and ducks. The Tagals have towns of consider- 



l62 



STRANGE PEOPLES. 



able size, with well-built houses perched on posts. 
They are well dressed in good cloth woven by 
the women. They are fond of gain and good 
traders. They are active in body and mind 
They delight in poetry, and it is said " boys on 
the street will improvise by the yard." The 
Tagals write their language with an alphabet 




HEAD-HUNTING PARTY: IGORROTES (MEYER). 



which was probably brought from India long ago. 
They formerly wrote on bamboo or on the bark 
of certain trees. The Tagals are passionately 
fond of cock-fighting. Every one chews betel 
nut. 

As to the third migration, it failed to reach the 
great island of Luzon. The immigrants were 
Mohammedan Malays from Borneo. They were 



MELANESIANS. 1 63 

sea-rovers and pirates. They gained possession 
of the Sulu Islands, the farthest to the southwest 
of the Philippines, and had landed on Mindanao 
when the arrival of the Spaniards put an end to 
their movements. They are usually called Moros 
or Moors, from their religion. They are polyga- 
mous and keep slaves. Their ruler is called the 
Sultan of Sulu. 

Such are the people of the Philippines: at 
least fifty-one tribes, speaking as many different 
languages. But there are also many foreigners 
there : thousands of Japanese and Chinese ; de- 
scendants of American Indians, brought by the 
old Spaniards from Mexico and Peru ; Spaniards 
and other whites. And lastly there are all sorts 
of mestizos^ or mixed persons, produced by the in- 
termarriage of all these so many different stocks 
— native and foreign. 

XXIX. 

MELANESIANS. 

Several great groups of people occupy the 
vast island world of the Pacific. We have already 
spoken of the Malays. In Australia live many 
tribes differing in language and customs. They 
are mostly dark brown with bushy or curly hair. 



1 64 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

They are savages in culture. South of Australia, 
in Van Diemen*s Land, or Tasmania, there for- 
merly lived a dark brown people, not tall in stature, 
with peculiar features and long curly hair ; they 
are now all gone. North of Australia, in Papua 
or New Guinea, are many tribes with curious and 
interesting arts and customs. The real Papuans 
are dark brown in color and have woolly hair, 
which, like that of the Bushmen, seems to grow 
in tufts with bare spaces between. They are of 
medium stature. The islands to the east and 
south of Australia and New Guinea are occupied 
by black, woolly-haired tribes, who are called 
Melanesians, and who are related to the Papuans. 
Among them are the natives of Fiji, New Britain, 
New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands. 

The Fijians of fifty years ago will well repre- 
sent the Melanesians. Thomas Williams, Fiji 
and the Fijians, will give us our facts. 

The Fijian hair-dressing was striking. Each 
chief had a special hair-dresser, who frequently 
spent several hours a day in arranging his 
master's hair. The hairs were trained to stand 
out from the head so as to form a great mass 
that might be trimmed into curious shapes. This 
smooth soft, solid, cushion-like mass of hair was 
stained with colors — jet black naturally, it might 



MELANESIANS. 



165 



be blue-black, ashy white, or shades of red. The 
whole mass of hair, except a band in front, might 
be black, while that was white ; sometimes the hair 
behind was twisted into cords ending with tassels; 
one man had a knot of fiery red hair on the 
crown while the rest of 
his head was shaved; 
sometimes the hair 
mass measured four 
feet or more in cir- 
cumference. Such 
grand hair-dressing 
would be ruined by 
lying down wath the 
head on the ground — 
so the Fijians had a 
wooden head-rest or 
oillow, which was set 
nnder the neck and 
held the head up, off 
the ground. 

Men wore a long sash of bark cloth, which was 
anywhere from three to one hundred yards long. 
This was passed between the legs and wound 
around the waist any number of times ; if it were 
long and the man wanted to present 2ifine appear- 
ance it was folded several times up against the 




FIJIAN (rATZEL). 



1 66 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

upper part of his body; the ends were allowed 
to trail behind. The men wore a turban of the 
same material, but fine and gauzy ; from four to 
six feet long, it was wrapped around the head, 
several times if need be ; if the hair mass was 
large, however, it would go little more than once. 
Women wore little but a fringed waist band, which 
hung to the knees. 

Like the Polynesians, from whom they probably 
learned it, the Fijians used much kava, a drink 
which produces a stupefied or intoxicated condi- 
tion. The preparation of kava for the king was 
a great occasion. The great kava bowl, made of 
wood carefully polished, was placed upon the 
ground. The guests seated themselves around 
it. A number of young men took pieces of the 
root from which the drink was to be made and 
chewed them well in their mouths ; they stacked 
up the pellets in the dish ; water was poured in 
until the bowl was nearly full and the balls of 
chewed root were well stirred about and squeezed 
in it. Then a man, especially trained to the work, 
strained them out with a bunch of fibre, in which, 
by twisting, he squeezed the pellets until no more 
juice or water ran out. The liquid was now ready 
for drinking. Prayer and song had accompanied 
the making of the kava. The king, receiving a 



1 68 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

cupful from a servant, spilled a little to the gods, 
and then drank. The others then drank in their 
order. It was a high honor to drink next after 
the king. 

The Fijians carved neat bowls and other vessels 
from wood. The kava bowls, though usually plain, 




canoe: new guinea (ratzel). 

were carefully cut and beautifully polished. The 
Fijians — almost alone of Pacific Islanders — made 
pottery; the vessels were in various strange though 
rather graceful forms, and were somewhat glazed. 
They made remarkable war clubs of fine, heavy, 
dark woods which varied much in form, were 
decorated with carving, and were handsomely 



MELANESIANS. 1 69 

polished. Fijians were not good sailors, but they 
made better canoes than some of those made by 
Polynesians, who were bold sailors. It is said 
that the Tongans (Polynesians) gave up their 
own style of canoe to adopt that of the Fijians. 
The canoes were, like those of many of the Pacific 
Islands, double canoes ; two canoes of the same 
shape and size were placed side by side — with 
some little space between — and united by a plat- 
form of boards ; one sail was sometimes hoisted ; 
paddles were used for sculling and a great steer- 
ing oar was employed. A much larger book than 
this would be needed for describing all the craft 
used on the water by Malayans, Melanesians, and 
Polynesians. The Fijians enjoyed music and had 
two or three kinds of drums, sticks that were 
beaten together, pan-pipes, a bamboo jew's-harp, 
a conch-shell trumpet, and a little flute that was 
blown by the nose. 

The Fijians were a polite people — that is, they 
had rules about greetings, behavior, and the treat- 
ment of superiors. One curious rule was that a 
servant or inferior, in case his master fell or got 
into some ridiculous position, must also fall or 
place himself in a similar ridiculous position. 
Afterward it was expected that he would be 
rewarded for his politeness. Mr. Williams 



I/O STRANGE PEOPLES. 

tells US an incident that illustrates this prac- 
tice : — 

" One day I came to a long bridge formed of a 
single cocoanut tree, which was thrown across a 
rapid stream, the opposite bank of which was two 
or three feet lower, so that the declivity was too 
steep to be comfortable. The pole was also wet 
and slippery, and thus my crossing safely was very 
doubtful. Just as I commenced the experiment 
a heathen said, with much animation, ' To-day I 
shall have a musket.' I had, however, just then 
to heed my steps more than his words, and so suc- 
ceeded in reaching the other side safely. When 
I asked him why he spoke of a musket, the man 
replied, * I felt certain you would fall in attempt- 
ing to go over, and I should have fallen after you ; 
and, as the bridge is high, the water rapid, and 
you a gentleman, you would not have thought of 
giving me less than a musket." 

The tabu is one of the most curious habits of 
Pacific Islanders. Though it occurred in Fiji, it 
was Polynesian, rather than Melanesian. Tabu 
was forbidding persons to touch, or use, or make 
some object. Chiefs and priests set most of the 
tabus, but lesser people might sometimes do so. 
A man might tabu all the cocoanuts in a district, 
setting up some sign or mark to show that he had 



MELANESIANS. I /I 

done so ; no one might thereafter touch a nut 
there until the tabu had been removed. A chief 
might tabu a man's working; he could not do 
work of any kind until the chief removed the tabu. 
A chief might tabu the building of canoes by the 
people of a certain village ; the people thenceforth 
would need to secure canoes from others. Thou- 
sands of tabus were set, and they made much 
trouble and inconvenience. The man who broke 
a tabu was punished, sometimes by death. 

The Fijians were dreadful cannibals. England 
governed Fiji for many years, and it was believed 
that the practice had disappeared. A few old men 
were considered almost as curiosities because they 
had eaten flesh of men and were called "the last 
of the cannibals." Then suddenly in 1889 the 
old custom broke out again. A party of Fijians 
killed some victims and ate them in a cave. A 
party in pursuit found evidence of the dreadful 
feast. Among these were some of the curious 
wooden forks used because it was not proper that 
the flesh should be touched with the fingers! 



1/2 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

XXX. 

POLYNESIANS. 

The Pacific Islands lying east from the Mela- 
nesian Islands, beginning with New Zealand and 
stretching to Easter Island, were occupied by Poly- 
nesians. The best known of their island groups 
were New Zealand, the Society Islands, Samoa, 
and the Hawaiian Islands. These islands are 
either volcanic islands or coral islands, and the 
natural animal and vegetable life occurring on 
them is less varied than on the great islands lying 
nearer to the Asiatic or Australian continents. 

The Polynesians present a fine type. They 
are often tall and well built ; their skins, though 
brown, are frequently light; the features are 
regular and the faces handsome. They are 
quick and intelligent, think and reason well, take 
new ideas readily, and are fond of beauty. They 
were barbarians, but had made so much progress 
that they were at the border-line of civilization. 
Living in a mass of islands that presented few 
natural resources, they had made the most of 
everything nature gave them. 

Many Polynesian tribes tattoo. Elaborate 
patterns are pricked into the skin, with lines of 
needles set side by side and dipped in color. 



POLYNESIANS. I73 

The New Zealanders tattooed their faces with 
curious curved-line patterns, each line had its 
proper place, and the patterns probably had a 




TATTOOED NEW ZEALANDER (VERNEAU). 

meaning. The Marquesas Islanders covered 
their bodies with elaborate and graceful patterns. 
The process was painful and only a small space 



174 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

was done at one time ; the whole work required 
years. 

Polynesian dress differed somewhat with the 
region. In New Zealand fine, soft, and flexible 
robes and blankets were woven of the native flax. 
In Hawaii the king and chiefs had wonderful 
feather cloaks which hung to the knees or even 
to the ankles. The little feathers of which these 
were composed were red and yellow ; a garment 
composed only of yellow feathers could be worn 
only by the king ; when both colors of feathers 
were used, they were arranged in diamond-shaped 
or other ornamental forms, with spots and lines 
of dark purple or black feathers. Besides the 
cloaks, there were tippets of feathers, which were 
generally worn by lower chiefs, who had not, or 
might not have, feather cloaks. In these feather 
garments the dress was made of a sort of netted 
foundation, into which these bright feathers were 
worked. Chiefs also had wonderful helmets of 
wickerwork which were covered with feathers. 
The helmet might be simple, just fitting the 
head, or large, ridged, or crested, and rising high 
above the head. In some islands the clothing 
consisted of a fringed girdle hanging from the 
waist to the knees. 

But everywhere in Polynesia the common 



POLYNESIANS. 



175 



dress was made of tapa. This was a kind of 
paper or cloth beaten out of the bark of certain 
trees. The bark was removed from the tree and 
soaked in water ; it was laid upon a large piece 
of wood and beaten with a sort of club or mallet. 
This was made of hard wood and was round at 
one end for being 
taken in the hand; 
the remainder was 
squared, and the four 
faces were either 
smooth or ribbed by 
longitudinal grooves. 
By this beating the 
wood was separated 
into its fibres, and 
these were mashed to- 
gether into a sheet of 
firm paper or cloth. 
This tapa differs with 
the tree from the bark 
of which it is made. 
Some is thin and dark brown; that from the 
bark of the breadfruit tree is fawn-colored ; that 
from the paper-mulberry, best and finest of all, 
is beautifully white. The women were so expert 
at beating tapa that single strips, four yards 




HELMETS AND IDOL-HEADS OF FEATH- 
ERS : HAWAII (RATZEL), 



176 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

wide and two hundred yards long, were beaten. 
Such cloth might be left plain, or it might 
be stained with colors, or it might be stamped 
with patterns. Wooden blocks or strips of 
bamboo were carved with designs which were 
smeared with color and stamped on the cloth ; 
sometimes ferns were laid in coloring matter, 
then the form transferred to the tapa. 

The two chief food supplies in Polynesia were 
breadfruit and cocoanuts ; yams (much like sweet 
potatoes) and bananas were plenty. A favorite 
food in places is poi, a sort of gruel or pudding 
made from the root of taro. It was not eaten 
with a spoon, but the finger was dipped into it 
and stirred around to get a good load of the 
sticky stuff on it, when it was stuck into the 
mouth and sucked clean. Fish were much 
eaten, though not all kinds nor at all times. 

The Polynesian oven was a hole, three or 
four feet across, and a foot deep, dug in the 
ground. The bottom was lined with stones, 
which were covered with dry leaves, upon which 
a brisk fire was built. When the stones were 
red-hot, the dust and ashes were brushed out of 
the oven, and the potatoes, yams, and taro, or the 
pigs, dogs, fish, and birds were wrapped in leaves, 
and laid upon the hot stones. When all the food 



POLYNESIANS. 1/7 

to be cooked had been neatly placed, leaves were 
laid above them, and hot stones on these. All 
was then covered in with leaves and earth, and 
left until thoroughly baked through. 

Many of the strange peoples we have consid- 
ered are filthy; Polynesians were unusually 
cleanly, and bathed frequently. In some islands 
surf bathing was the chief sport. Every traveller 
to Hawaii has described the practice. Babies 
were taken into the sea by their mothers within 
two or three days of their birth, and could swim 
as soon as they could walk. Old and young, men 
and women, bathe in the surf, and the heavier the 
waves the greater the sport. The surf-bathing 
board was five or six feet long, and a foot wide ; 
it was carefully polished. Taking his board and 
pushing it before him, the man swam far out to 
sea, diving under the billows as he met them. 
When far enough out, he lay himself on the end 
of the board and waited for a great wave. When 
it came, he poised himself on its very crest, and 
paddling with hands and feet rode in upon it 
almost to the shore. 

The Polynesians were warriors, and their bat- 
tles were cruel and bloody. They rarely ventured 
into battle until their gods, through their priests, 
promised them success. To prepare themselves 



178 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

for war they practised in warlike arts. Thus 
they slung stones at marks, threw javelins, and 
wrestled. It is said that, in slinging, they were 
able to strike a small stick at fifty yards' distance, 
four times out of five. In their javelin practice, 
the man at whom the weapon was thrown often 
caught it and hurled it back; some were so 
skilled that they " would allow six men to throw 
their javelins at them, which they would either 
catch and return on their assailants, or so dex- 
trously turn aside that they fell harmless to the 
ground." In going to war, a chief summoned all 
his friends and subordinates. When they had 
gathered, the gods — especially the war gods — 
were brought out to assist and encourage them. 
During the battle there was great noise and 
confusion ; effort was made to kill the great 
chiefs of the enemy, so that their followers might 
be discouraged. Many were killed. Survivors 
fled to some fortress, or the mountains, or found 
safety in one of the curious " places of refuge," 
within whose sacred precincts no harm could be 
done them. 

For weapons, the Hawaiians had spears of 
great length, javelins, clubs which were used 
both for thrusting and striking, a hard wood 
dagger, and slings often made of human hair. 



POLYNESIANS. 



179 



On the Kingsmill Islands the natives made 
weapons, in many shapes or sizes, of wooden 
shafts, along the sides of which great numbers 
of sharks' teeth were 
securely lashed. 
These weapons 
were used both for 
thrusting and strik- 
ing, and were fear- 
ful things on naked 
bodies. In those 
same islands, and 
on account of these 
shark-tooth weap- 
ons, the natives had 
curious protective 
clothing or armor 
of cocoanut fibre. 

Many Polynesians 
were cannibals : 
some of them dread- 
ful cannibals. Their 
eating of human 

flesh was often connected with their religion. 
They had many gods, whom they represented by 
idols. The Hawaiian war god is an example. 
His idol was an image four or five feet high ; the 




KINGSMILL ISLANDER (TYLOR). 



l8o STRANGE PEOPLES. 

upper part was of wickerwork covered with red 
feathers; the hideous face was suppHed with a 
great mouth with triple rows of dog's or shark's 
teeth ; the eyes were of shell, and upon the head 
was a helmet crested with long tresses of human 
hair. 

XXXI. 

CONCLUSION. 

We have spoken of many Strange Peoples. 
We have gone around the world in our search. 
But after all we have examined but a small part. 
Remember that there are fifty-one peoples at least 
in the Philippines alone. We have not examined 
the Australians, or the unfortunate Tasmanians, 
or the many tribes of Siberia, or the sixty native 
populations of India. We have omitted great 
nations like the southeast Asians, — Siamese, 
Burmese, Annamese. In fact, there are many 
more Strange Peoples that we have not exam- 
ined, than we have studied. But we have ex- 
amined enough, I hope, to learn that they are 
interesting and deserve our acquaintance and our 
sympathy. 

There are few unknown peoples left. Travellers 
have gone to almost all parts of the world. The 



CONCLUSION. l8l 

spots which represent absolutely unexplored re- 
gions on our maps are now neither large nor 
numerous. There are many peoples about whom 
we know little, but there are not many who are 
actually unknown. Those that may be discovered 
hereafter will be interesting, but they are not 
likely to be very different from those now 
known. 

Many of the Strange Peoples are becoming less 
" strange " every year. Old customs and peculiar 
practices are dying out in every part of the world. 
Travellers, missionaries, and merchants from white 
men's lands are taking our ideas, our tools, our 
weapons, our dress, our learning, our religion, and 
our vices to the remotest parts of the world. Some 
of the Strange Peoples here described have already 
lost most of their old customs. The Polynesians 
and Fijians have little of the old life which we 
have described. Many American Indian tribes 
have changed less. Some populations have still 
changed little. But a tribe must indeed be remote 
and difficult of access to actually escape our touch 
absolutely. Usually the change is not improve- 
ment. Other people more quickly adopt our 
vices than our virtues. Many tribes have become 
drunken, diseased, and depraved through the white 
man's influence. It is rare, indeed, that a lower 



1 82 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

people gains in happiness or virtue by contact 
with " higher civihzation." 

Many of the Strange Peoples will disappear. 
The Tasmanians were killed off almost like so 
many animals by the English. American Indian 
tribes have suffered almost as badly at our hands. 
Many tribes have gone ; others are going. The 
Lipans were once a fairly numerous tribe. In 
1892 I saw all who were left in the United States 
— four women and one man; six months later 
I saw them again — the man was dead and only 
four women remained. The Tonkaways are 
dying out at the rate of one-third each eight 
years. The Polynesians, strong, handsome, active, 
and happy as they were when James Cook visited 
their islands little more than one hundred years 
ago, have dwindled, and fifty years more may blot 
them from the earth. Not all American Indian 
tribes are dying out ; it is possible too that Poly- 
nesian decline began before Cook's travels. But 
it is certain that on the whole the changes 
brought by the newcomers sealed the doom of 
the Indian and Polynesian. 

There have always been movements of peoples 
from place to place. We have seen the Malays 
pouring three great masses of immigrants into 
the Philippines. There are white peoples in 



CONCLUSION. 183 

Asia ; there are yellow peoples in Europe. Re- 
cently plenty of whites and of blacks have 
poured into America. Such movements contain 
some danger. The fair whites will probably 
never be able to live in the tropical lands. A 
certain sort of skin, hair, nose, breathing appara- 
tus, is necessary for men who are to live and 
prosper in low, hot, marshy parts of Africa. For 
Germans to try to colonize equatorial Africa is 
probably a fatal blunder. So far as we know the 
dark whites — Spaniards, Italians, south French- 
men — make better tropical colonizers than we 
do ; but even they are not successful. The 
negro is a bad colonizer, he hardly holds his own 
even in our Southern states. Of all the peoples 
of the globe the Chinese seem to be the best able 
to colonize differing countries. He seems to go 
to hot lands and cold lands, to small islands and to 
great continents, but flourishes everywhere. So 
true is this that some writers have urged that 
Africa be opened up for settlement to the 
crowded millions of the old empire. For most 
peoples, however, migration, if they must migrate, 
is best along the lines of latitude into lands as 
much like the old home as possible. Many 
Scandinavians live to-day happily where Wiscon- 
sin, Iowa, and Minnesota join ; and they may be 



1 84 STRANGE PEOPLES. 

expected to prosper there, for land and water^ 
soil and products, scenery and climate, are ther^ 
much what they were in the fatherland. 



LTST OF BOOKS REGARDING 
STRANGE PEOPLES. 

This list makes no pretension to completeness ; a few only of 
the many books of the kind are mf^ntioned. Those with a 
prefixed asterisk will be useful to teachers ; those without will 
interest children ; those foUowcd by an asterisk have directly 
contributed to this book in reading matter or illustration. 

Arnold : Japonica.* 

Batcheller : The Ainu of Japan.* 

Bramhall : The Wee Ones of Japan.* 
♦Brinton : Races and Peoples. 

Du Chaillu : The Land of the Dwarfs.* 
*Deniker : The Races of Man. 

DooLiTTLE : Socia/ Life of the Chinese.* 

Ellis : Polynesian Researches.* 

FiELDE : A Corner of Cathay. 

Hearn : GHmpses of Unfamiliar Japan. 

Hue : Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China.* 
*Keane : Ethnology. 
*Keanf : Man ; Past and Present. 

Lane : The Modern Egyptians. 

Leonowens : The Enghsh Governess at the Siamese Court. 
*Lowell: Choson.* 
*LuBBOCK : Origin of Civilization. 
*LuMMis : The Land of Poco Tiempo.* 

Marshall : Phrenologist among the Todas.* 
"^Meyer : Album von Philippinen-Typen.* 

MiLN : Little Folk of Many Lands.* 

Nansen : Eskimo Life. 



1 86 LIST OF BOOKS. 

♦Peschel : The Races of Man. 

De Quatrefages : The Pygmies. 
♦Ratzel : History of Mankind. 
♦Ratzel: Volkerkunde.* 
*Ri:cLUS: Primitive Folk. 

RocKHiLL : The Land of the Lamas. 

SCHWEINFURTH : The Heart of Africa. 

Smith : Chinese Characteristics. 

Stanley : In Darkest Africa.* 
♦Turner : Samoa. 
♦Tylor: Anthropology.* 
♦Verneau : Les Races Humaines.* 

Wallace : The Malay Archipelago. 

Ward : India and the Hindoos.* 

Williams : Fiji and the Fijians.* 



